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ROMANCE OF THE MAINE COAST 
In Five Vols. 



I. Romance op Casco Bay. 

II. Romance of Old York. 

III. Sokoki Trail. 

IV. Ancient Pemaquid. 

V. The Land of St. Castin. 

(in press.) 




YE LITTLE RIVER OF PEMAQUID 



MAINE COAST ROMANCE 

W IRomancc of 
®lb e flbemaqufo 



BY 



HERBERT MILTON SYLVESTER 




BOSTON 
Stanbope lpress 

1908 



r 



s^ 



|UBRARY of CON(3iSESS| 
| Two Copies Kecei»«i(S 

9 l 



IoLassA JUta »* 
/<5tf 3 to 4 



Copyright by Herbert M. Sylvester, 1908. 
All rights reserved. 



^ 



AUTHOR'S EDITION 

This edition is limited to one thousand copies 
printed from the face type. This is No. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO 

HENRY LELAND CHAPMAN, A.M. 

Professor of English Literature, Bowdoin College. 
A Gentleman of Letters. 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY 




EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 

HERE is, my dear professor, in 
the inscription of this volume to 
you, a suggestion of carrying coals 
to Newcastle, yet I am impelled 
to it in open flagrancy of all the 
proprieties, perhaps; for I know 
of no one who is likely to be more 
patient under adversities of this 
sort, or so forgiving, once you are 
assured of the honesty of the tres- 
passer's sentiment. 
It is not a far cry to the inception of the work of 
which this volume is the fourth installment, and your 
kindly and encouraging suggestions are cherished, 
as well as your fine appreciation of my plan of writ- 
ing these five stories of days well nigh forgotten. 
It struck you as a field hitherto unoccupied. It 
was only a hint on your part, but the sovereign 
rights of the squatter were singularly apparent in 
this particular instance, and I therefore proceeded 
to "squat ", — with the result that my title to four- 




10 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

fifths of this originally inchoate right has been fairly 
established, while the remaining fifth is struggling 
with the printer's devil. 

I have not forgotten the genuine surprise that 
found a quick expression in your questioning glance 
when I said to you that only the story of Casco 
Bay was ready for the printer, while the four remain- 
ing volumes were but the unformed creatures of 
the brain with less of tangibility than the wind that 
sets the hilltop pines a-sough with drowsy com- 
plainings. 

If there was an accent of doubt in your remark 
that perhaps I had too readily discounted the future 
and its exigencies, I failed to note it, but I am free 
to assure you I proceeded to set the kerosene aflame 
in the incubator with a somewhat anxious celerity. 
I cannot say that I gave much attention to the 
thermostat. The only question was, would the 
fuel hold out until the last legendary biped had 
pipped its shell. As it turned out, there was fuel 
enough and to spare after the last tale of all, "The 
Land of St. Castin," was fairly in swathing-bands 
and snugly tucked away with its elder brothers 
until the man with the composing-stick should come 
for them that they might receive their consecration 
in printer's ink. 

Those were, I confess, anxious days, but the way 
the winged Mercuries fanned the atmosphere about 
that incubator would have startled the most pro- 
lific genius. It was a peculiar atmosphere. There 
were the musty cerements of long-gone dwellers in 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 11 

these early places to be shaken out and aired. Old 
pictures long since turned to the wall were to be 
dusted and re-vitalized, — the long-silent tongue 
choked with mould and smothered with cobwebs 
was to trip again its 'customed gait. Faded out 
and invisible footprints were again to bloom out 
along the old ways, and to break their silences with 
sturdy foot-falls, while the clack of a clumsy wooden 
loom marked time with a lyric whirring of spindles 
that spun poetry along the vibrant woollen rolls 
daintly held by many a Priscilla, and in whose 
twisting was hopelessly caught the heart of many a 
John Alden. To be sure, the wide old-fashioned 
hearths were noisy with the crackle of blazing back- 
logs, but there was a smiting of the wilderness and 
its hidden terrors, the glower of a copper-hued vis- 
age among the shadows and the dull smother of a 
musket-shot, the blare of whoop and shrilling yell, — 
harmless imaginations of the brain, yet each and all 
clamoring insistently to be heard. 

Then there were the audible silences of this aborig- 
inal country broken only by the song of the centuries 
beating, measure upon measure, along the shores of 
this labyrinth of olden Sagadahoc and Sasanoa until 
the hail of the adventurous Champlain and sturdy 
English Waymouth mingled with its strange echoes 
the grinding tongue of a Ratcliff fisherman and the 
musical burr of Saintonge. 

Notwithstanding the heart-burnings and the acrid 
controversies that began with the scruples of Dr. 
Belknap and the nosings of Skipper Williams, whose 



12 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

brine-soaked prototype was wont to aver that he could 
locate old Ma'm Hackett's backyard despite his 
antipodal environment, and which have been punc- 
tuated by the rival memorial upon the Thomaston 
shores, there is left to one the "eye single" by which 
the body is filled with light. One is reminded, as 
well, if the blind lead the blind, the ditch is but a 
little way on. 

This controversy is to^be avoided from the au- 
thor's point of view, for the reason there is really so 
little in the contention. I will, however, confess to 
you, my dear professor, that I have my doubts as 
to the veracity of Skipper Williams' "smellers" 
though he held Rosier 's Tales of the Hills never so 
close to his nose before. 

As compared with the subtle Rosier, Strachey 
was less the romancer, but more the "finisher of 
our faith," and one need not mind with Strachey in 
one's pocket. He leads straight to the ledgy dome 
of old Sabino and the heaped-up sand-dunes of Hun- 
newell's Beach. The Penobscot has an unsurpassed 
wealth of tradition, and dear old Sagadahoc is no 
less rich in ancient lore; for the names of Sieur du 
Gast, Champlain, Waymouth and Popham, yea! 
and grand old Samoset, are her peculiar heritage. 

If I have seemed somewhat garrulous in this little 
epistle, it is because the opportunity is so sugges- 
tive, and yet, I am sure of absolution because your 
friendship is no less assured than welcomed, — the 
friendship of one notably of genial and hospitable 
characteristics and beloved by all the children of old 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 



13 



Bowdoin. I am heartily well-pleased, though not a 
University man, to give you of the best I have, 
hoping that the mellowing of the years may bring to 
you only fair weather and the companionship of 
your choicest friends. 

How true it is that right living begets love! and 
with this for a parting thought while we quaff our 
stirrup-cup, the saddle between our knees, — give 
me your hand, neighbor! Here's to your health, 
until we meet again! Yours, 

THE AUTHOR. 




PREFACE 




NEW MEADOWS RIVER 



PREFACE 

F Byron has remarked the truth 
as more marvellous than the most 
pleasing and subtile product of the 
imagination, it is not perhaps so 
palatable to the mental relish. It 
does not exhilarate as does romance, 
and perhaps that is why one takes 
for a choice the following of the 
" idiosyncracies of the rain-bow chaser 
as he keeps to the trail of Legend and 
Tradition as they lead him over the 
Delectable Mountains that mark the horizon of that 
strange country whose cosmographer discovers his 
affinity in a lively imagination. 

The Crucible of Time fuses Tradition into pass- 
able history, and in the absence of a better authority, 
it becomes current coin; and, by reason of its very 
elasticity it answers to the demands of an exacting 

17 




18 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

and hyper-critical antiquarian, more often than not. 
The reason is plain; for, where authentic evidence is 
not to be had, the best at hand is depended upon. 
Where there is none at all, a possibility will do, 
patched up like a pair of worn trousers, with a patch 
of a query, which is dropped by the next annalist for 
convenient reasons to be accepted by a careless and 
indifferent constituency; so, in the recalling of 
ancestral beginnings on the New England Coast, and 
especially that part under consideration, one assumes 
the right to set up one long-gone episode and another 
as mile-stones on the way to the dead centuries and 
those who wrought in them. Nor, is it to be won- 
dered at, that the modern surveyor, blazing his way 
along the ancient demarcations, should be guilty, 
unwittingly, of a sometimes false reckoning, because, 
he, by chance, has established his metes and bounds 
outside the domain of ungarnished fact, to find him- 
self browsing along the weed-beset byways of un- 
authenticated happenings. 

One is not always sure of so-called facts, dipped as 
they have been from so many ink-pots, and colored 
as they must have been, inevitably, by the alluvium 
of one mentality and another through which they 
have found their way to the present time, as the 
channel was narrow and tortuous, or generously broad 
environed with fine atmospheres. If the reader 
should perchance discover here or there a sleazy 
place in the fabric which the author has tacked 
across the span of the years which made up the 
pioneer life of the seventeenth century, or else- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



19 



where, along the road among whose worn ruts the 
author has left his footprints, it is to be hoped that 
any sense of annoyance, if so serious an affection 
should result, may be over-balanced and assuaged 
by his sincere desire to interest, as to edify. 

THE AUTHOR. 








Early Explorers at Sagadahoc. 

Fort St. George. 

Pemaquid. 

Monhegan. 

Sheepscot. 

The Priest of Nanrantsouak. 




Page 

Half-title 

Frontispiece 2 

Thorndike Oak 8 

Headband, Epistle Dedicatory 9 

Initial 9 

Tailpiece 13 

Headband, Preface 17 

Initial 17 

Tailpiece 19 

The Cache 21 

Notes With the Thumb-nail 23 

Tailpiece 28 

Headband, Explorers 35 

Initial 35 

Map 36 

Map of Popham Country 39 

Hockomock Bay 40 

On the Sagadahoc River 43 

Autographs 45 

2'6 



24 ILLUSTRATIONS ' 

Page 

Kidd's Cave 47 

New Meadows River 51 

The Cuckolds, Burnt Island 55 

Allen Island, Waymouth Cross 58 

Cape Rosier 62 

The Cuckolds, Capemanwaggen 64 

Squirrel Island Shore 65 

Winnegance Creek 68 

First Meeting-house, Bath 71 

Fiddler's Reach 73 

A Bath Wharf 74 

Bluff Head, Arrowsic 76 

Denny Block-house 78 

Old Denny House 80 

Off Pentecost Harbor 81 

Monhegan Harbor 83 

Seguin From Sewall Cottage 88 

Seguin Landing 90 

Headband, Sabino 93 

Initial 93 

Early Chart 95 

Sabino, Shore 98 

Autograph, J. Popham 101 

Autograph, William Strachey 105 

The Cliffs of Monhegan 107 

The Herons Ill 

Bald Head, Cape Small Point 115 

Plan, Fort St. George 119 



ILLUSTRATIONS 25 

Page 

Hunnewell Beach 122 

Cape Small Point 124 

Popham Point 127 

Site of Old Fort at Ancient Augusta 133 

Popham Beach 137 

Sabino Hill, Fort Popham 141 

Fort Popham and Cox's Head 144 

Fox Island 148 

Pinnace Virginia 151 

Perkins Island Light 155 

Headband, Old Fort Frederick 159 

Initial 159 

Early Chart 163 

Entrance to New Harbor 168 

Plan of Olden Pemaquid 171 

On John's Island 175 

Pemaquid Light 179 

Samoset's Signum 187 

Surf at Pemaquid 197 

Site of tJie Old Forges 201 

Pemaquid River, Inner Harbor 205 

An Old Spanish Fort was On This Point .... 208 

New Harbor 211 

Pemaquid Reach, Field of The Three Hundred 

Cellars 215 

Pemaquid Post Office 217 

Old Dam, McCaffrey's Creek 221 

Medomak River 225 



26 ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Below Pemaquid Falls 229 

Autographs 236 

Shell Heaps, Damariscotta 243 

Old Burying-ground, Pemaquid 256 

Ancient Pemaquid Graveyard 260 

Plan Fort William Henry 263 

Fort Frederick Before Excavation 266 

Fish Point 268 

The Shipyard 272 

The Ruins Partly Restored of Fort Frederick . . 274 

Autograph, D : Iberville 275 

The Cache 277 

Needle-like Pemaquid Point 279 

West Bastion old Fort Frederick 281 

Great Sand Beach 282 

Headband, Monhegan 285 

Initial 285 

The Washerwoman, Lobster Cove 287 

Monhegan Cliff s 292 

Monhegan Harbor 295 

Fish Flakes 298 

Boar's Head 301 

Turtle Head 307 

Little Church on Monhegan 310 

Pulpit Rock 315 

Monhegan Light 318 

The Lighthouse 322 

The Fog-bell 324 



ILLUSTRATIONS 27 

Page 

An Ancient House 326 

Haunted House 327 

Fish Houses, Monhegan 329 

Headband, The King's Highway 333 

Initial 333 

Ancient Sheepscot 334 

Basin Below Sheepscot Falls 336 

Mouth of the Ovens 338 

Narrows, Burnt Islands 341 

Crumble' 's Reach 343 

Pines in Ancient Cellar 344 

Joseph Glidden Manse 348 

Brickyard Cove 350 

Job's Hill 353 

The Spring-well 355 

Village Street 357 

Davis' Point, Decker Narrows, Clough's Neck . 359 

Bit of Wiscasset 361 

Brickyard Cove 368 

Marie Antoinette House, Edgecomb 371 

Decker's Narrows, Squam Island 373 

Garrison Hill 377 

Site of Fort Anne 379 

Block House, Egdecomb 382 

Headband, Nanrantsouak 387 

Initial 387 

Arnold's Trail 389 

Dead River 392 



28 ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Autographs 395 

Bit of Norridgewock 397 

Fort Weston 399 

A Norridgewock Highway 403 

Old Fort Weston 407 

Norridgewock Meeting-house 411 

The Jail 415 

Grand Falls, Dead River 419 

Old Tavern 425 

The Rale Monument 430 

Tailpiece 431 




PRELUDE 



Ho there, Seguin! tell me the tale 

Of olden days, when Du Guast broke the veil 
Of Desert's rock-ribbed, fog-choked isle; 

Startled her painted shores with voiceless hail 
Of ghostly-white sea-wings, to fade 

As silently within th' empurpled spell 
Of Sasanoa's Daedalian fiord 

Where once the keen-eyed Champlain's shadow fell. 

Who left that shallop of old Basque 

On York's dun sands! Sing me the roundelay 
That thrilled its yellow ribs of oak — 

A. fishing-song of ancient Brittany. 
What Siren lured its fisher-crew, 

As, toying with her limped, sun-dyed locks, 
She wrought the rune of summer days 

By Capemanwagen, or, on Hunnewell's Rocks! 

What of the fair-haired Breton maid 

Who grieved with hopeless heart and sore! 
No more her lover's hail might sound 

Across the dingy quays of old Honfleur. 
But, ever as the storm winds howl, 

Or wild waves lash Sabino's hoary head, 
The salt tears drip into the sea — 

Its mournful tribute to a nameless dead. 

Caughtst thou the joyous shout that o'er 

These waters rang when Cabot furled his red 
Sails 'neath Penobscot's regal pines; 

Or Way mouth's footfall on gray Pemaquid? 
Saw you the walls of Popham rise 

And fall? Thou sayest not ; but, churl-like, hoardst 
Thy tryst as Egypt's Sphinx her own, , 

Salt-smothered, drenched with every tide's unrest. 



THE EXPLORERS 




EARLY EXPLORERS AT SAGADAHOC 

S one sights spicy old Sut-quin (Seguin) 
to near the historic shores about the 
mouth of the Sagadahoc, the present 
fades like a dream to open out into 
the limitless vistas of those early 
days of prophecy, to which the 
fruition of to-day would have been 
as unreal to the Cabots, Champlain, 
Gosnold, Pring and Waymouth, as 
the Terra Incognita of this Maine- 
land, up and down which they coasted 
in turn, and with which, in a way, they acquired 
some familiarity, is to the antiquary of the Twen- 
tieth century. One can only approximate to the 
vision that broke upon the Cabots as they left 
the fogs of the St. Lawrence behind to skirt the 

35 




36 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



headlands of Cape Sable to sweep again northward 
on the swift tides of Fundy to Minas Basin, to 
again follow the swirl of the same tide along the 
New Brunswick shore, southward, to Quoddy Head, 
crossing what were afterward known as the waters 
of the St. Croix where Du Monts and Champlain a 
half-dozen years later were to christen St. Croix 
(Ducette's) Island, and build their houses of stone, 
which upon these shores were the earliest hiero- 
glyphics of a foreign civilization. 

This was in the year 1604, and in September of 
that year Champlain 
had voyaged so far 
south as Monhegan, or 
within ten leagues of 
the Quinibequy, and 
here meeting boisterous 
weather, 



September 
2 3, the 
French 




turned their prow 
northeastward to re- 
trace their course to 
the St. Croix where they had pitched their winter 
quarters. The winter well over, Du Monts got 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 37 

underway for a voyage clown the Bay of Maine, 
and Champlain, as the annalist of the voyage of 
exploration, notes that on July 1st, 1605, they left 
the mouth of the Norombegue and filled away to 
the westward. He estimates they had sailed 
some twenty-five leagues over the course sailed 
the fall before when they came to the mouth of the 
Quinibequy where they anchored in five to six fathoms 
of water. 

Champlain says: "At the entrance there is an 
island quite high which we have named la tortue, and 
between this and the main land are some scattered 
islands and the rocks, covered at high water, but the 
sea breaks over them. The Isle de la tortue and the 
river are SSE. and NNW." 

There came along with them a dense fog which 
shut out the land as well as the sea, and they kept to 
their anchorage until the 5th, when they sailed into 
the Sheepscot River, to begin the minute scrutiny of 
its physical characteristics. The Sheepscot was the 
Quinibequy of the aborigine, and it was up this 
beautiful stream they worked their ship, but not 
without some danger as their vessel came near being 
wrecked upon one of its treacherous ledges. Farther 
up stream they encountered a party of savages in two 
canoes with whom they held some converse with the 
aid of the squaw of Panounais. Panounais had 
come along from St. Croix as a guide, by whose kindly 
offices, the French were able to induce these savage 
hunters to show the way to their Sagamore, Man- 
thoumermer. Their course was still up stream past 



38 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

miles of sloping uplands, meadow-lands and marshes 
beginning to yellow under the mid-summer sun, 
leaving behind a long narrow island, making at last 
the head of the river which may have been in the 
neighborhood of the present Wiscasset. Here they 
discovered the Indian village, its Sagamore, and 
about thirty of the tribe. It was a most friendly 
conference, and after the disposing of some trinkets 
among the delighted savages, a treaty was entered 
upon. The following day, guided by the Quinibequies, 
the French made the passage from the Sheepscot into 
another stream than that by which they had come 
thus far. 

Champlain says: "Passing by some islands each 
of the savages left an arrow near a cape by which all 
must pass; they believe that unless they do this the 
devil will bring about some misfortune; they live in 
this superstition as well as many others. Near this 
cape we passed a fall of water, but it was not done 
without great difficulty, for although we had a fair 
and fresh wind and carried all the sail we possibly 
could, we were obliged to take a hawser ashore and 
fasten it to the trees and then pull with all our 
strength, and thus by main force and the favoring 
wind we got through. The savages who were with 
us carried their canoes along the shore, being unable 
to make headway with their paddles. After having 
passed the fall we saw beautiful meadow-lands. I 
was much astonished at this fall because we descended 
easily with the tide, but at the fall it was against us, 
but above the fall it ebbed as before much to our 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 39 




40 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



satisfaction. Pursuing our route we came to a lake 
which is three or four leagues long, with islands in it. 
Here descend two rivers, the Quinibequy which comes 
from the northeast, and another which comes from 
the northwest, by which Marchim and Sazinou were 
to come, but having waited the whole of this day 
without seeing them we resolved to keep our time 
employed, and so weighed anchor and came to the 
mouth of the river." 
According to Gen. John Marshall Brown, whose 




HOCKAMOCK BAY 



brochure upon Champlain's Explorations is a warm 
and deserved tribute to the genius of Champlain and 
his influence in the colonization of the Maine coast, 
he says that it is evident that Champlain explored the 
Sheepscot "to the northern extremity of Westport, 
descended the river on the west side of the island, 
passed close to what is now Hockamock Point, pulled 
the vessel through the upper Hellgate, and so entered 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 41 

the Kennebec proper, and passed on to Merrymeeting 
Bay. The descent was made by the true channel to 
the site of Fort Popham where they probably 
anchored, unless they made a harbor a little further 
to the westward." This tracing of the trail of 
Champlain is doubtless the correct one, as an acquain- 
tance with these waters would indicate. The boats 
hug the East shore of Hellgate to-day as did Cham- 
plain. Champlain used up about four days in his 
"spyeing out" the continually unfolding fascinations 
of the scenery along the way from the time he had 
turned Capemanwagen, dodging the Cuckolds until 
he had doubled Clough's Point at the upper end of 
Westport, until finally he had left behind him the 
sands of Hunne well's Beach, all which to him must 
have been a wonderful revelation of Nature. It was 
on the 8th of July, delayed again by the fog, that 
Champlain sailed away westward toward the mys- 
teries of Casco Bay. 

As one sails up the Kennebec in these days, one 
finds patches of shore that are apparently unchanged 
from the coming of Champlain. The same bold 
headlands, the same reaches of salt marsh, the same 
bands of tawny sands hooping the curving shores of 
the narrowing bays, or gilding the jutting spurs of 
the evergreens that hold apart their emerald cups, 
are here as in the clays when Waymouth strode up 
Hunnewell's Beach with his jester and story-teller 
Rosier not far behind. The waters roll in from an 
unbroken horizon, oceanward, and pound the black 
walls of stone as they have for the innumerable 



42 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

centuries. They iterate the Litany of Nature now 
as they did in the days of the Cabots, the same 
ceaseless monody of the sea under the baton of the 
iridescent spray, keeping the tale of the tides with 
rhythmic notation. One hears to-day by the sea the 
Song of the Centuries, that began when the last 
glacier had melted away and the silt of its medial 
moraine had been garnished with a riant vegetation, 
and the hills had begun to be glothed with the verdure 
of the woods. In Cabot's day the shag of these 
shores was not so ragged as now; for, except on the 
marsh-lands, the greenery was interminable, the 
woods rolling back inland, unbroken and unscarred, 
while the islands were tree-sheltered and embowered 
with fruitful vines. The wild grape was indigenous 
to all the islands along the coast, and delicious to the 
palate, as Champlain discovered on his third and last 
voyage down the Maine Coast. These barren, tree- 
denuded heaps of rack mid-seas, were, in his time, 
oases of verdure ; and it is only as the fishermen came 
that they have cut their trees for shelters, fishing- 
stages and fire-wood. It was a vandal tax upon the 
picturesque, but an inevitable. 

It was on the 25th of July that Champlain left Cape 
Cod, after designating it among his notes as Cap 
Blanc, sailing down the coast with a fair wind to again 
run into the mouth of the Chouacoet (Saco) where he 
met Marchim, the Sagamore of the lands around 
Casco Bay, and whom he had hoped to meet at Merry- 
meeting Bay earlier in the month. Champlain gives 
this portrait etching of this savage, — "who had the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



43 



reputation of being one of the bravest men of his 
country, and he had a fine manner, and all his gestures 
and movements were grave and dignified, savage 
though he was." Champlain made these savages 
some presents, and, in return, the Sagamore presented 
him with a young Etchemin, a boy captured to the 
eastward. Champlain was again at the Kennebec 







ON THE SAGADAHOC RIVER 



July 29th, where they met the Sagamore Anassou, 
who, to use Champlain's own words, — "told us there 
was a vessel six leagues from the harbor which had 
been engaged in fishing, and the people on board had 
killed five savages of this river, under the pretense of 
friendship, and according to his description we judge 
them to be English, and named the island where they 
were, ' Le Nef,' because at that distance it had that 
appearance." 



44 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

This island was Monhegan, and this coming hither 
of Waymouth in the Archangel was, without doubt, 
his nearest meeting with the English who were 
beginning to acquire some familiarity with these 
waters. 

Sieur cle Poutrincourt came over in the Jonas, 1606, 
bringing Lescarbot who was later to write the story 
of New France. Port Royal had been decided upon 
as a site preferable to that upon the St. Croix, and it 
is Lescarbot who relates the romance of the new 
colony. A large portion of those who came over with 
Du Mont returned with him to France, while Cham- 
plain remained "with the Sieur cle Poutrincourt, 
intending by the grace of God, to finish and perfect 
the chart which," as he says, "I had commenced of 
the country and the coast." 

It was in the early part of September of this year 
that Champlain essayed his third voyage of dis- 
covery along the coast of Maine. Some six days 
later he was again at the mouth of the Kennebec 
where the vessel came very near shipwreck amid "the 
currents which are peculiar to the place." His stay 
here was brief, as their destination was the Cap Blanc 
of the preceding year; and it was from Malabarre 
(the Cape Cod country) on October 28th, that they 
sailed for Port Royal. It was on this last voyage 
that Champlain tasted the wild grapes of the Isle of 
Bacchus and found them good. On his return he 
seems to have sailed across the mouth of the Kennebec 
without stay. This somewhat extended notice of 
Champlain 's coming hither has been accorded him as 



F# ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 45 

he was the first explorer of the inner Kennebec waters, 
and, as Gen. Brown says, "the three voyages are the 
first thoroughly intelligible contribution to the 
cartography of Maine." 

Hakluyt says, "In the year 1497, the 24th day of 
June, on St. John's day, was New Foundland found 
by Bristol men in a ship called the Matthew." This 



(fern. SvuM^ 






^^idiai/cf Jx&LCilyJ- >>^^<pv 



was a private adventure, but it was not until 1602 
that the next English venture was made by Gosnold 
in the good ship Dartmouth. Much to Gosnold 's 
surprise, he had hardly dropped anchor off the York 
sands when his vessel was boarded by the aborigines 
clad in a garb similar to his own; and later, in 1607, 
Gilbert had hardly furled his sails under the shadows 
of Pemaquid before a Spanish shallop was chafing the 
sides of the English ship, manned by a crew of savages 
who showed their appreciation of the hospitality of 
the English by leaving some of their party on board 
over night. These incidents are suggestive of a prior 
and some-time standing acquaintance with the civi- 
lization of Europe, and avouches the truth of the 
assertion of the familiarity of the Continental fisher- 



46 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

man with these shores ante-dating the advent of the 
Cabots, even. 

Just here, a quotation from Purchas's Pilgrimes, 
(1625) is of interest. The incident is founded upon 
Gosnold's Landfall in 1602 upon the York shore. 
The language of the annalist, Purchas, owns to a 
quaintness that is attractive. He says: 

"The fourteenth, about six in the morning we 
descried land that lay north, . . . the northerly we 
called the North Land, which to another rock upon 
the same lying twelve leagues west, that wee called 
Savage Rocke, because the savages first shewed them- 
selves there ; five leagues towards the said rocke is an 
out point of woodie ground the trees thereof very high 
and straight from the rocks east northeast. From 
the said rocke came towards us a Biscay shallop 
with saile and oares, having eight persons in it, 
whom we supposed at first to bee Christians dis- 
tressed. But approaching us neere, we perceived 
them to bee savages. These comming within call 
hayled us, and wee answered. Then after signes of 
peace, and a long speech by one of them made, they 
came boldly aboord us being all naked, saving about 
their shoulders certaine loose deere skinnes, and 
neere their wastes seale skinnes tyed fast like to 
Irish Himmie trousers. One that seemed to be 
their commander wore a wastecoate of black worke, 
a pair of breeches, cloth stockings, shooes, hat and 
band; one or two more had also a few things made 
by some Christians. These with a piece of chalke 
described the coast thereabouts, and could name 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



47 



Placentia of the New-Found-Land. They spake 
divers Christian words, and seemed to understand 
much more than wee, for want of language could 
comprehend." 

This relation, of Purchas, surprising as it is, is not 




KIDD'S CAVE 



lacking in authenticity, and the simplicity of the tale 
attests its truth. 

Gosnold sailed from Falmouth, Eng., March 26, 
1602, in the Concord. It has been alleged by his- 
torians that his purpose was the founding of a colony 
on the northern coast, and his voyage had been 



48 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

alluded to as "insignificant in results." From best 
accounts he made his first landfall May 14th, about 
the purlieus of Casco Bay, and to which he gave the 
name of "Northland." Gosnold dropped his anchor 
off Cuttyhunk where he built a fort, the site of which, 
according to Belknap, was identified in 1797, and 
again in 1817 and still later in 1848. The building 
of this fort was a clandestine performance, and has 
been seized upon by the advocates of the earlier 
Massachusetts colonizations as an offset to the 
Popham works at St. George in 1607. Gosnold's 
Expedition was contraband in character, and with- 
out authority, and the building of the fort was not 
revealed by Gosnold on his return to England. His 
quest was for cedar, sassafras and furs, and it was a 
private undertaking for immediate gain. From the 
time of his arrival to his departure, his crew were in 
revolt over the division of the supplies, the shortage 
of which is abundant proof of the temporary character 
of Gosnold 's intentions. Had he intended to have 
left any portion of his thirty-two companions as the 
seed for a colony, he would have come prepared for 
its provisioning until such time as it could have 
become self-supporting. But such was not the 
fact; for upon his arrival at South Hampton, July 
23rd, he had "not one cake of bread," to, soon after, 
encounter Sir Walter Raleigh who confiscated his 
cargo as contraband. 

It was the next year that Martin Pring, April 10th, 
sailed away from Bristol, sighting the Maine coast 
June 2nd. Where he made his first landfall is un- 






YE ROMANCE OF OLD**' PEMAQUID 49 

certain, but he says he entered one of its rivers to 
afterward sail southward to drop anchor at Savage 
Rock (York), but not finding the aromatic root of 
the sassafras as he had anticipated he kept on to 
Cape Cod to drop anchor in what afterward became 
known as Plymouth Harbor, — the "Port of Cape 
St. Louis" of the Du Monts voyage of two years 
later; ten years later named "Crane Bay" by the 
Dutch. 

The results of these voyages were meagre. They 
are nothing more than way-marks along the hitherto 
spasmodic efforts whose mainsprings of action lay 
in a desire for personal aggrandizement. If one 
accepts Purchas, Gosnold found a safe anchorage 
among the Islands of Pemaquid, which Gosnold 
says were "very pleasant to behold adorned with 
goodly grape and sundry sorts of trees, as cedars, 
spruce, pines, and fir trees." Robert Aid worth was 
the chief adventurer in this voyage, who with Giles 
Elbridge were the Co-patentees and Founders of 
Pemaquid, the waters about which, even to the Isles 
of Shoals, seem to have become after Smith's voyage, 
1614, the Mecca of the English fishermen. Pemaquid 
and Monhegan at the time of Gosnold's coming had 
long marked an anciently known fishing-ground, the 
limits of the occupation of which anteriorly, is not 
to be bounded. Its mainland was a part of the 
Mawooshen of Purchas, the eastern boundary of 
which was the land of the Tarratines. 

Of the contemporary English voyages, that of 
Waymouth in 1605, and who was located by Cham- 



50 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

plain at Monhegan in July of that year was most im- 
portant. Waymouth however, had come and had 
made some exploration of the Kennebec, and had 
sailed away ere the French cartographer was made 
aware of the proximity of the English navigator. 
On his return from his first voyage to Cape Cod, the 
second down the coast of Maine, he got from Anassou 
the story of the abduction of the five savages who 
were carried to England as the first New World 
freight of the Archangel. 

This first coming of Waymouth is interesting from 
the record of what seemed to have an ultimate pur- 
pose, which was to be carried out the following year. 
He had sailed away from English Ratcliffe on Easter 
Sunday, Mar. 15, 1605. His destination, originally, 
was Cape Cod and the lands to the southward the 
descriptions of which by Brereton and Verrazano 
he had read. Contrary winds brought him up against 
the coast of Maine in 41° 2', north, and against his 
preconceived course to the southward, he sailed to 
the eastward to anchor on the north side of Mon- 
hegan, May 17th. Here, to quote Strachey, "he 
found the land faire, and the whole coast bold to fall 
with, and then, a safe harbour for shippes to ride in, 
which hath besides, without the river, in the channell 
and soundes about the island, adjoyning to the 
mouth thereof, so desired a road, as yt is capable of 
an infinite nomber of shippes. The river, likewise, 
ytself , as yt runneth upp into the mayne for very neere 
forty miles towards the high inland mountaines, he 
found to beare in breadth a myle, sometymes three 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 53 

quarters, and half a mile the narrowest; never under 
four or five fathom water hard by the shoare, and 
six, seven, eight, nine, and ten fathomes all along 
on both sides; every half mile very gallant coves, 
some almost able to conteyne one hundred sayle, 
where the grownde ys soft ouze, with a tuffe clay 
under, for anchor hold, and where shippes may lye 
without eyther anchor or cable, only moared to the 
shoare with a hauser; and which floweth eighteen or 
twenty foot at high water, with fit docks apperteyning 
to graine or carine shippes of all burthens, secured 
from all windes, which is so necessarye and incom- 
parable a benefit, that in few places in England, or in 
any parts of Christendome, art, with great charges, 
can make the like; besides the bordering land most 
commodious and fertill, trending all along on both 
sides in an e quail plaine, neither mountaynes nor 
rockye, but verged with a green border of grasse, 
sometymes three or four acres, sometymes eight or 
ten togither, so making tender unto the eye of the 
surveyor her fertility and pleasure, and which would 
be much more if, by cleansing away her woddes, 
shee were converted into a goodly meadowe; and the 
wodd shee beareth is not shrubbish, fitt only for 
fuell, but goodly oake, birch, tall firreancl spruse, which 
in many places grow not so thick together, but may, 
with small labor, be made feeding grownd, being 
plentifully stoard, like the outward islands, with 
fresh water springs, which streame down in many 
places. The woddes here are full of deare, hares, and 
other beasts, and reasonably well inhabited by the 



54 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

natives, of mild and good condicions; many provinces 
(as about us within the Chesapeak Bay, and about 
Roanoack) governed in chief by a principall com- 
mander or prince, whom they call Bashaba, who hath 
under him divers petty kings, which they call Saga- 
moes, the same which the Indians in our more 
sowardly parts call werowances, all rich in divers 
kinds of furs. 

"Captain Waymouth thought it fitt to make up to 
the head of the river, which he did well sixty miles 
in his barge; and as the streame trended westward 
into the mayne, and at that height yt beganne to 
narrowe, so he there sett upp a crosse with his 
Majestie's inscripton thereon, observing all the waye, 
that in noe place, eyther about the islands, or up in 
the mayne, or all alongst the river, there could be dis- 
cerned any one token or signe, that any Christian 
had been there before, of which eyther by cutting 
wodd, digging for water, or setting up crosses (mem- 
orialls seldom omitted) by Christian travellers they 
might have perceaved some testimony, or mention 
might have been left; and after this search, Capt. 
Waymouth being well satisfied with instruction and 
knowledge, of soe commodious a seat sett sayle for 
England, and the eighteenth of July following 
arrived before Dartmouth." 

Strachey's account has been given, as it is of a 
certainty, in accordance with the fact; and with his 
relation in mind one is fortified against the inten- 
tional discrepancies of Rosier which led Dr. Belknap 
into a controversy as unimportant as it was idle. It 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 55 

has been something of a thorn in the sides of the claque 
so persistent in the claim for the priority and per- 
manency of the Mayflower settlement, as if such 
contention could add or detract from the glory of 
the Plymouth of 1620. 

There is no question but the story of olden Pem- 
aquid is the story of the most ancient of the New 
England settlements. It has never been claimed for 
it that it was a home-building community or the 




THE CUCKOLDS, BURNT ISLAND 



nursery for a religious cult, as was the Plymouth 
colony, a refuge for dissenters and non-conformists, 
a tillage-ground for Brownist or Separatist to be 
extended ten years later to Beacon Hill where Calvin- 
ism became a political creed and the communal con- 
science began to be trained to a stake like a trammelled 
vine, which some have interpreted to be the stocks, 
a whip and a cart-tail, a pillory or a ducking-stool, 
whose rigid shadows, as the sun rose and set, lay 
across men's ways, — dumb threats to spur the 



56 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

spiritual laggard to more active pretension, or a more 
ascetic purity. 

After the desertion of Hunnewell's Point by the 
Popham Colony, contemporary interests were centered 
at Pemaquicl. I apprehend that the iconoclastically 
inclined antiquary reviewing the doings of men at 
Pemaquid from 1610 down through the succeeding 
decade of years, will hardly have the assurance to 
affirm that here was a deserted Auburn, simply 
because he does not find any, to him, satisfactory or 
affirmative evidence of a continuous occupation. 
As has been before remarked, here were prolific 
fishing-grounds. That they were frequented by fish- 
ermen is not to be gainsaid, nor is it strange that out 
of the dim obscurity of those years no story has been 
preserved of those who came to Pemaquid for fish 
and furs ; nor is it any marvel that so much of Smith, 
Rocroft and Dermer has been given to us. They 
came for a purpose whose results were to come out of 
futurity, employed or predetermined to report the 
incidents of their several voyages. It is true that 
Gorges found his efforts abortive in that immediate 
locality, but there were those who came to fill their 
holds with the harvest of the sea, or the riches of the 
aboriginal trapper, and it was hardly for their interest 
to make their movements matters of record. I 
apprehend that those hardy fishermen had not a 
thought of the arguments that were like to grow out 
of so heinous a negligence on their part. Not one of 
them had a lapstone like Cobbler Keezar's, nor had 
they ever heard of the Mormon's Goggles, else they 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 57 

would every one, to a man, turned to and cornered 
the paper, pen and ink market and, instead of fishing, 
gone to dreaming and telling Munchausen stories. 
The comers here were in that period mere fishermen, 
and it is safe to say that while Pemaquid could be 
hardly considered a permanent settlement, yet it 
must have been a familiar stamping-ground for those 
who came and went for gain, who sheltered their 
vessels in its quiet coves, and who dried their fish 
on its sunny shores, with the freedom of the King's 
subjects whose consciences were as easy under the 
shadows of Whitehall as within the sound of the surf 
off Pemaquid Point. There were shelters for them 
here, for here was a natural anchorage, while there 
was practically none at Monhegan, although this 
island afterward became a notable fishing resort, and 
no one can say that here was an isolate territory 
after the disruption of the Popham Colony, until the 
coming of Pearce. History is hardly more than 
biography, if one takes Emerson's view, and the days 
being written of were not prolific of biographic 
literature, especially when it concerned those whose 
walks were among the hedges or byways of the fishing 
villages. 

One does not always feel to rush in where angels 
might fear to tread, but it is true that folk not in- 
frequently get a touch of maggot i' the head and go 
daft on one thing or another and begin to argue to 
maintain their peculiar idiosyncracy. Like Thomas, 
they put their finger into the wound, and even then 
the stream of their argument flows on. One thinks 



58 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



as he pleases ; but at the long range of three hundred 
years, to make an assertion of what occurred at that 
time about Pemaquid, or rather what did not occur, 
— because one never heard of it, — is like long-range 
rifle-practice without elevation or wind-gauge. The 







record of that old civilization is meagre. That is to 
be admitted, but one can be conservative, and one 
opinion is as good as another until something other 
than negative evidence is offered. Say what one will 
there is always something left on the shelf. One 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 59 

might as well try to brush all the cobwebs from the 
ceiling at one fell swoop, — there is ever a strand 
of the spider's rune left. One gleans here and there; 
his harvest is his own, whatever its quality. It was 
perhaps something of a similar disposition that led 
Dr. Belknap into the contention that Waymouth 
explored the St. Georges River in 1605, and not the 
outflow of the Kennebec, but Champlain locates 
Waymouth off Monhegan, even if Strachey were 
lacking. Nahanada, the savage abducted by Way- 
mouth and who piloted Pring in 1606 up the Saga- 
dahoc, corroborates Champlain. As for the journal 
of Rosier, it was purposely misleading as to the 
location of Waymouth's operations and doubtless in 
conformity to his instructions. 

Those were jealous times among navigators who 
sought these strange shores, with the exception 
perhaps of Champlain whose survey was of a terri- 
tory supposed to be covered by a Patent under the 
seal of Henry IV., and which authorized the Sieur 
Du Monts to plant French colonies therein. This 
jealousy was common to maritime Europe, and newly 
discovered opportunities for trade and commerce 
were coveted, and the adventurings of one nation or 
another were guarded with the utmost secrecy. 

Waymouth had been known as a bold navigator. 
Before his voyage to the Sagadahoc, he had been 
engaged in the searching out of the supposed North- 
west Passage to the country of Cathay. He was in 
the Arctics in 1603, and upon his return was employed 
to make further search in the same behalf, but actually 



GO YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

to discover some feasible site for an English colony. 
It was by reason of that engagement that the voyage 
of 1605 was undertaken, and which led to the Popham 
settlement on the Sagadahoc. 

It was incumbent on the master of the ship to keep 
a record of the voyage. It was not considered that a 
strict adherence to the truth should be observed, for 
the public was to be tickled and cajoled a little, 
enthused and excited to sail away to the strange 
lands where valuable minerals and precious stones 
were to be picked up by the mere stooping for them. 
The scheme was to induce emigration and the seek- 
ing for new homes, and the leaving of the easy-chairs 
and familiar places, the breaking up of the old- 
fashioned easy ways, for the lean and waiting years 
which were to be crowded with arduous labors and 
unanticipated perils. So it came about that Rosier 
kept the journal of the Voyage of the Archangel as 
Waymouth would have it kept, to set conjectural 
tongues a-wag and wise heads a-nod as the argument 
happened to lay. 

It is not a far stretch of the imagination to one 
familiar with the seashore to paint a mental picture 
of the ledge under one's feet, while one looks out over 
the surf that ever lashes the rocks of Pemaquid, out 
over the strip of green water to where the sea is as 
blue as the drippings of an old-fashioned indigo dye- 
pot, to where rides a ship of quaint apparel and of 
stranger lines. One can see that its sails have been 
dipped in a vat of English oak and perhaps from 
Sherwood forest, and they show red against the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 61 

dusky verdure of old Monhegan, which Waymouth 
dubs at once "St. Georges." It was about twelve 
o'clock of a Saturday that the anchors were slipped 
from their lashings for their first plunge into these 
Pemaquid waters. The day before the ship had 
weathered a stiff gale and these quiet waters, the 
clear sky and the spring winds barely ruffling the sea, 
were especially welcome. It was a delightful maze of 
color that met Waymouth 's eye as he looked land- 
ward with the tops of the woodlands massed into a 
huge brush of color as the deciduous trees began to 
burst their buds. The winds as they blew offshore 
brought suggestions of the spices of Cathay, the 
odors of the pines, the yellow birches, the firs and 
spruces, the reddening bloom of the maples and the 
subtle fragrance of the roseate mayflower, and under- 
neath all, like the vehicle in which these royal scents 
may ride, comes the breath of the meadows which 
Strachey describes so enthusiastically. Waymouth 
was in the Land of the Magician. Away over the 
tops of the far woods that rolled like a huge billow 
across a limitless sea of forest, he saw some lofty 
snow-capped mountains, the White Hills of New 
Hampshire. Away to his right were the blue Camden 
Mountains, and the pictured shore lay before him 
from Muscle Ridge to Sabino, the like of which he 
never saw before. 

Rosier says: "The next day, being Whitsunday, 
because we rode too much open to the sea and winds, 
we weighed anchor about 12 o'clock, and came along 
to the other islands more adjoining the main, and in 



62 YE ROMANCE OF Ohm PEMAQUID 

the road directly with the mountains, about three 
leagues from the first island where we had anchored." 
This would bring him into the "offing against the 
Damariscove Islands," and, once there, he manned a 
boat and set out with two men to discover a safe 
haven for the ship, which having found, he signalled 
the vessel to a safe berth, a drowsy windless cove, and 
which he named "Pentacost Harbor," and which is 
better known as Booth Bay. 




CAPE ROSIER 



It was here on this day that the first observance of 
the English Sabbath was had. The service was held 
in the narrow cabin of the Archangel, and it was a 
solemn and heartfelt service. "We all praised God 
for his unspeakable goodness in directing us into so 
secure a harbor," writes Rosier. It was a high and 
hopeful emprise upon which Waymouth was bent, 
and he was greatly pleased with what lay before him. 
The climate was mild, and the weather that which 
presages the first days of Summer. One can see 
patches of bluets whitening the open places as if the 
snow had not altogether melted, and the purple of 
the violets, the yellow of the dog-tooth, the pallor of 
the anemone and the purple of the trillium make 
spatters of color where the wild grasses make daubs 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 63 

of fresh vert. Under the evergreens the floors show 
warmly brown where the sun falls. The lichens on 
the ledges and on the trunks of the ancients of these 
woods have a lively glow for Nature has had her fill 
of saps, and is making new pigments with every dawn. 
All these made up the color that filled the vision of 
Waymouth as he turned his back to the sea for a leap 
upon the virgin sands of Booth Bay, — a small 
island as yet unidentified. 

Upon this island they found timber and water, and 
signs of a recent occupation by the natives. Here 
they carried their pinnace ashore which had been 
brought over in small sections or pieces, and from the 
twenty-fourth of the month to the thirtieth, there 
were the sounds of hammers at the pinnace; some 
were digging a well for better water; some were fishing 
for something to eat; others were cutting spars and 
floating them out to the ship, — in fact, all were busy, 
and, according to Rosier, all were pleased and con- 
tented, so that events moved along from day to day 
with a cheerful alacrity. With the English instinct, 
some had rooted up the earth and made a garden 
which was planted. In a few days the seeds had 
germinated and the little slender blades were up. 
What it was they planted is not recorded, but they 
found the land responsive and fertile. I have often 
wondered what happened to that garden after these 
sowers of seed had departed in mid- June. Here was 
romance of its kind, a humble one to be sure, but one 
would like to know the date of the first frost, and 
whether the savages discovered, cultivated and har- 



64 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

vested this foreign vegetation. This was the first 
garden of the Kennebec planted by English hands, 
but it is typical of the English thrift, that whatever 
they have should be made to produce more, to say 
nothing of the mental nourishment to be gained from 
such close contact with Nature. But along the 
coast were the planting-grounds of the aborigine, who 
had his patches of maize, his pumpkins and beans, 
and his stone mortar for grinding, much after the 
primitive fashion of the Orientals. But one would 
like to be able to locate the little island where this 




THE CUCKOLDS, CAPEMANWAGGEN 

Tragedy of the Seeds was enacted. It may have been 
Mouse Island, after all, as it must have been, by 
Rosier's account, well up toward the mainland where 
the Archangel dropped her anchor. 

While the pinnace was building, Waymouth made 
a survey of the harbor. Fortified with the arms 
of the time, they landed upon two islands and 
traversed them their lengths. From the description, 
the larger must have been Capemanwaggen. Natur- 
ally, the other would be Squirrel Island. Cape- 
manwaggen they found to be of good area with four to 
five miles of shore, and at its widest, to span a mile. 
In the forenoon of May 30th the little exploring craft 
was finished and being immediately stocked with 




SQUIRREL ISLAND SHORE 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 67 

provisions and such other things as were needed, 
Waymouth started off with thirteen men, "in the 
name of God," leaving fourteen of the crew in charge 
of the ship. Hardly was Waymouth out of sight than 
those on the ship were surprised at the sight of two 
canoes filled with savages who making their way to 
an adjacent island built a fire about which they 
gathered as if to attract more particular attention to 
themselves. The English beckoned them to come 
over to the ship. One canoe pushed off the sands 
and not far from the vessel began by strange and 
excited gesticulations to converse by signs which 
could be not otherwise than unintelligible. An 
exhibition of a few trinkets from the ship's side 
brought them on board, and here occured the first 
interview of the English with the aborigine. It is 
to be regretted that the English were not always so 
considerate of the savage, for upon this first visit 
they were treated with the utmost courtesy. These 
were followed by their companions, and at this time 
was consummated the first barter for furs, and ar- 
rangements were entered into for the further trading 
for peltry. It was not long after that the savages 
had occasion to rue their acquaintance with these 
white strangers. 

It was mid-forenoon of the next day when Way- 
mouth announced his safe return by three musket- 
shots, and as they approached their ship, they kept 
up a fusillade, Fourth of July fashion, so elated were 
these explorers with their discoveries, which, once 
on deck, Waymouth began to unfold, of "a great 



68 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



river, which trended into the main about forty miles," 
which estimate must have been a matter of con- 
jecture with Waymouth as he had had time to do 
hardly more than half that distance by daylight 
unless he had had the wind abaft both going and 
returning. It was outing of a kind new to Way- 
mouth, and he enjoyed it. Not a cove with its rim 
of yellow sands, not a jutting nose of rock hooded 







WINNEGANCE CREEK 



with its bursting verdure, not a reach of gray salt 
marsh, with the wide vista of the river always before 
and behind, ruffled by the soft wind, or riffled by 
the wings of immense flocks of low-flying wild fowl, 
escaped his enchanted vision. The mink stopped 
his fishing to look wide-eyed at this strange craft. 
The otter forgot to slide down his clay-bank for a 
dip in the stream, while the beaver became instantly 
oblivious of his building plans to show his white 
chisels with mouth a-gape. It was a day of surprises 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 69 

for these dwellers amid the haunts of the Quinibe- 
qui, and a day of unmingled delight to Waymouth 
and his crew. Where they may have built their 
camp-fire that night, or upon what soft mosses 
they may have stretched their tired bodies, is not 
known, but strange sounds filled their drowsing ears, 
sounds strange to them and mayhap disquieting, 
but of that Rosier says nothing. One who has 
camped in the woods knows the myriad noises of 
the night. The owls held a conference, while the 
fox barked in concurrence; or far off, the howl of 
the wolf, the trumpet of the loon and the wierd cry 
of the catamount made the audible silences tremu- 
lous with ominous speech. The night winds sang 
or soughed through the woodland spires a soft dia- 
pason to the lapping waters of the tide where the 
rocks along shore held subdued speech of curious 
import as to the errand of this strange embassy. 

It was a holiday excursion, a privately conducted 
tour, upon which, owing to the strangeness of his 
environment, he made no haste; and then there was 
the disposition of the natives; and he had a whole- 
some regard for their arrows. He found a large 
flow of water both fresh and salt, and a strong current, 
and on either side a fine country. One can hear 
him telling those who remained at the ship of what 
he saw, and one would have preferred his relation 
to that of Rosier. And then the ship's crew had to 
tell him of their visitors. It was the first instance 
as well of "swapping stories" so proverbial of the 
Yankee. I think I should have dropped Scherazade 



70 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

for one evening at least to have mingled with this 
crew of the Archangel for that occasion. 

His plans were to make a second exploration of 
the great river, but this was deferred for a few days 
while he made a better acquaintance with Pente- 
cost Harbor. It was then that he determined to 
take a few of the savages over to England for a bit 
of schooling in English civilization. Since the day 
of their first appearance the savages had been con- 
stant visitors, and Indian fashion, discerning a good 
thing when they saw it, some of them not only 
brought their bows and arrows aboard but their 
canoes as well. The English attitude was kindly, 
when one of the chiefs proposed that the English 
should go ashore for a bit of trading. Waymouth 
consented but with the proviso that the chief should 
remain on ship as a hostage. This was declined 
peremptorily, but a young Indian was left in his 
stead, and Owen Griffin was allowed to go along 
with the savages as an exchange. Griffin used his 
English eyes to so good an advantage that in going a 
short distance into the woods he counted two hundred 
and eighty-four savages in war-paint and armed with 
bows and arrows besides numerous dogs and tamed 
wolves. On his return to the ship he confided his 
discovery to Waymouth who had before had his sus- 
picions aroused. He determined to make prisoners 
of the three savages then in the ship and sending to 
the shore he induced two more of their tribe to come 
to him. These he at once secured in the hold of 
the vessel and taking care of their canoes he made 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 71 



preparations to ascend the river up which he had 
sailed a few days before. 

June 8th, he was still surveying the harbor where 
his ship was moored, and in the rim of one island 
shore he discovered a sandy cove where there was 
good anchorage for small craft. Here he landed 
and soon spied out a pond of clear, sweet water 
which had an outlet over a bank into the sea. Fur- 
ther away from the shore he discovered a stream 




'M' ■**" — &F» 

FIRST MEETING HOUSE, BATH 



which at a small charge of labor might be made to 
turn a mill-wheel. To these colonists who were to 
come over with Gilbert and Popham, and doubtless 
Waymouth was in the secret of the enterprise, a 
mill would be almost a necessity, and the whir of a 
wheel would be a music to which their ears were 
accustomed, every opalescent drop from its buckets 
would own to the coloring of their own English skies. 
Before they had shipped anchor for the up-stream 
voyage they entertained an embassy from the 
Bashaba at Pentagoet. It was led by the chief, 



72 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

who refused to become a hostage, and his errand 
was that Waymouth should go over to his country 
to trade. Waymouth, still suspicious of their de- 
signs, gave them so little encouragement that they 
soon paddled away in their canoes, and, as he be- 
lieved, unaware of his forced detention of their five 
dusky brothers. Be that as it may, they followed 
the ship as she sailed westward. 

Rosier says: "It was on Tuesday, 11th of June, 
we passed up into the river with the ship, about 
twenty-six miles." Here they dropped anchor, but 
the city of Bath was not there with its band of roofs 
and spires running along the river-bank. Fiddler's 
Reach had been left behind, and it was long years 
before it got its name; but the rectangular bend 
in the Kennebec was there just the same, just op- 
posite the southerly end of the ship-building town 
where the river turns to merge its flood with the 
Sagadahoc and Winnegance Creek makes into its 
west shore. The tradition is that two hundred or 
more years ago a shallop sailed up this stream and 
when the sailors came out upon the beautiful ex- 
panse of river with its mile of verdurous shores 
where now resound the hammers of the Bath Iron 
Works, they were so elated that the fiddler of the 
crew, walking out upon the bowsprit, essayed a lively 
hornpipe while the crew contributed to the hilarity 
by scuffing about the deck. As the vessel swung 
into the main river a flaw in the wind brought the 
jib about with a slat, and the fiddler was knocked 
into the water and drowned. Fiddler's Reach it 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 73 

is to-day, but the wild beauty of that day is no 
more. Its pristine glory is departed, and Rosier 
writes of the difficulty he has in painting the pros- 
pect. He compares it to the Seine and the Bor- 
deaux. His description is a glowing one, and Rosier 
may well be given the place as the earliest of the 
out-door writers from the American standpoint. 

The next day Waymouth went ashore to examine 
the soil, the woods and the character of its timber. 




FIDDLER'S REACH 

There were seventeen in this party. Six were left 
on ship. Waymouth plunged into the woods, west- 
ward, toward the lesser hills visible from the deck 
at his moorings under the lee of Monhegan, and he 
found them close by. The clays were getting sultry, 
and the men, clad in the cumbersome armor of the 
times, which consisted of pauldrons for the shoul- 
ders, a corslet for the body and tassets for the thighs, 
and possibly a pot-shaped helmet, became weary 
with the carrying of so much metal, and it was de- 
cided to explore no further that day. They found 
excellent pasturage and good arable land thinly 
overgrown with dwarf birch and lesser brush, which 



74 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



could be easily cleared away and made to support 
goodly herds and to supply an abundance of fodder 
for a long winter. The soil was of a rich dark color, 
well-grassed, and Rosier mentions that they found 
strawberries, which has a palatable and home- 
like sound, and brings to mind one's childhood sallies 
into the home pasture or meadow for that one of 
Nature's most deliciously flavored fruits. I look at 
my finger-tips as I write of those old days to see if 
the crimson stain of the wild strawberry is not on 




A BATH WHARF 



them yet. The notes of the bobolink sift down 
through the bars of June sunshine to mark the 
time of my erratic footsteps, and the wind lifts the 
flap of my old straw hat that has kept the mice 
company through the winter as it hung on its peg in 
the old farmhouse garret. How true it is that 
"One touch of Nature makes the world akin!" 
And yet, who would expect to find a strawberry 
patch along with Rosier among the out-cropping 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 75 

ledges, long ago hidden by the huddled roofs of 
modern Bath! I wonder he does not make mention 
of the aromatic saps of the spruces that have clotted 
into teats of transparent amber which one finds in 
all the drug stores at ten cents the ounce, and 
which smacks of the wildness of the deep woods, to 
make one think of logging camps and wood-chop- 
pers, the fur-hunter with lightsome snowshoe scan- 
ning the ice-bound streams, or feeding his brush 
fire by the threshold of his lean-to, his swart figure 
hardly distinguishable from the like swart trees that 
make the background of the wilderness. He has 
stolen 

"the color of his vest 

From rabbit's coat or grouse's breast; 

For, as the wood-kinds lurk and hide, 

So walks the woodman, unespied." 

Rosier was something of a Nature-lover, else he 
would not have spied out so many of her hidden 
things. He likens the slopes above the river to "a 
stately park with many old trees, some with withered 
tops, and some flourishing with their green boughs. 
Upon the hills were remarkably high timber trees, 
masts for ships of four hundred tons, and at the 
bottom of every hill a little run of fresh water, the 
furthest with a great stream able to drive a mill." 

He does not mention going a-fishing for trout, and 
he found these runs of water just in time when the 
trout is looking for a nibble, but that was before good 
old Isaak Walton had essayed to teach the science of 
angling, yet he was even then at twelve years whipping 



76 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQU1D 

the streams of Stafford with his Kirby or Limerick, 
and noting the way of the wind and his luck with his 
rod, until he lays down the dicta: "You are to take 
notice, that of the winds, the south wind is said to be 
the best. One observes that 

'When the wind is south, 
It blows your bait into a fish's mouth.' 

Next to that, the west wind is believed to be the best; 




BLUFF HEAD, ARROWSIC 

and having told you that the east wind is the worst, 
I need not tell you which wind is the best in the third 
degree; and yet (as Solomon observes) that 'he that 
considers the wind shall never sow, ' so he that busies 
his head too much about them, if the weather be not 
made extreme cold by an east wind, shall be a little 
superstitious; for as is observed by some, that 'there 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 77 

is no good horse of a bad color, ' so I have observed, 
that if it be a cloudy day, and not extreme cold, let 
the wind set in what corner it will and do its worst, I 
heed it not." 

Here the antiquarian has rambled off up-brook with 
that boon companion of anglers, just at the thought 
of a " red-spot," with Rosier all to be blamed for 
putting the thought into one's head. Lay the blame 
where you will, the thought of a pliant rod, an alder- 
shadowed stream and a soft south wind will push any 
man with a soul off the beaten track ; for 

"When we please to walk abroad 

For our recreation, 
In the fields is our abode, 
Full of delectation: 

Where in a brook, 

With a hook, 

Or a lake, 

Fish we take; 

There we sit 

For a bit, 
Till we fish entangle; " 

and it is all fish that comes to basket, whether it be 
a wiggling trout, or a fossilized tradition dug from 
the shale of Sabino. 

After Waymouth had waded these "runs of fresh 
water, " on his return from this exploration by land, 
coming in sight of his ship, Rosier says: "We dis- 
covered a canoe, coming from the further part of the 
river, a cove or codde Eastward, which made great 
haste to reach the ship. In which canoe was he who 
refused to be pawned, with two others. They had 



78 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



followed us from the eastward, toward the ship; they 
most earnestly entreated us to come on shore and 
spend the night with their Bashaba, who, they sig- 
nified, would the next morning come to the ship and 
trade with them." Waymouth declined these over- 
tures, apparently friendly, of the savages, and they 




<5he iP< ?t T r n 3M<X'K \o-u>>e 

departed as at Pentecost Harbor. The following 
day, the 13th of June, at two of the morning, having 
laid in a sufficient supply of armor, ammunition and 
provision, he headed up-stream for further exploration. 
He carried with him a cross which he determined to 
set up on a point of land which made out into the 
river, and where he dropped it in the darkness of the 
early morning. As the tide served, he was anxious 
to take advantage of it, and so kept on into the 
"mayne," about twenty miles from the ship, up into 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 79 

the Brunswick Narrows possibly. They went by 
meadow and marsh and numerous small confluents, 
finding the land to possess the characteristics of 
intervale, with excellent soil hooded with oak and the 
gray birch. There were patches of meadow-lands 
containing four to five acres ready for the scythe and 
the plow. Rosier says, — "I cannot by relation suf- 
ficiently demonstrate" the beauty and the goodness 
of the river. "That which I can say in general is 
this: what profit or pleasure soever is described and 
truly verified in the former part of the river, is wholly 
doubled in this." 

As the tide turned they went down river with it to 
the place where they left the cross (Chop's Point), and 
which they set firmly in place. Rosier says, further, 
— "we diligently observed, that no place either about 
the islands, or up in the main, or along the river, we 
could discover any token orsign that ever any christian 
had been before, of which either by cutting wood, or 
digging for water, or setting up crosses, a thing never 
omitted by any christian traveller, we should have 
seen some mention of it. " The cross in place, Way- 
mouth returned to his ship, and the next morning, 
the 14th, the expedition went down the river with 
the tide and about eleven o'clock in the forenoon 
dropped anchor in the mouth of the Sagadahoc where 
the remainder of the day was spent in taking sound- 
ings, "and all that was necessary to make a perfect 
directory about the mouth and up the river." The 
next day Waymouth shifted his moorings to Penta- 
cost Harbor. Here the water-casks were filled and 



80 Y E ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the preparations for home-going made, and the 
journal nears its end. 

"Sunday, June 16. The wind being fair we set sail 
on our return home, and on the 18th of July arrived 
at Dartmouth, the harbor we had left." With this 
final quotation from Rosier, one can aver his journal 
to be worth the reading from its initial word to its 
final mark of punctuation. It is a romance, Turner- 
esque in its color, quaint, yet delightful, in its flavor, 







and simple to a degree in literary style. It is almost 
photographic in its detail, and yet these minor hap- 
penings are not the less charming. If it does not 
possess the invention and polish of Irving, it smacks of 
truth germinated in the everyday experiences of a 
faithful observer. It is the work of a cultured man, 
and was at once published as the narrative of the 
Waymouth Voyage. 

It resulted in a notable activity on the part of Sir 
Ferdinanclo Gorges and Chief-justice Popham who 
had taken over the interests of Arundel and South- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 81 

ampton, and who the following year (1606) de- 
spatched Challons, and who sailing too far to the south, 
fell a prey to the Spaniards, leaving his mission unac- 
complished. Unaware of this loss, Thomas Hannam 
was sent out with Martin Pring as master of the vessel. 
They took along with them one of the savages ab- 
ducted by Waymouth, Nahanada, as a pilot, and once 
on the Monhegan coast, the savage led them into the 
mouth of the Sagadahoc, where he left the ship to 
relight his camp-fire and rebuild his wigwam, where 








^*% Wl Ufa 3L #r 9^^^ 



$>*"%■*- ~~^ggMw<<-xii»> 



OFF PENTECOST HARBOR 



he must have held his tribe in awesome silence as he 
related his tale of the wonderful things he had seen in 
his journey abroad. Nahanada's trip across the water 
may be considered the first European tour from the 
American side. Pring failed to find Challons or any 
sign of the colony he was expected to found. He set 
about making explorations similar to those of Way- 
mouth, by which he must have corroborated that 
navigator, and which so pleased Gorges that he ad- 
mitted it the best that had yet come to his hand. 



82 YE ROMANCE OF OLD*? PEMAQUID 

Nahanada chose to remain with his kindred, and 
Pring set sail for England where he arrived safely, 
with the approbation of his employer as above 
mentioned. Following this came the renewed activ- 
ity of fitting out a colony, and the exploration of 
the waters of the Sagadahoc may be said to have 
been completed. 

The writer has designated the Kennebec waters as 
the scene of the Waymouth exploration. Dr. DeCosta 
asks the pertinent question, — Did Waymouth "ex- 
plore the St. George River or the Kennebec?" He 
says, answering the question for himself, after refer- 
ring to Ballard and others: "The narrative of the 
expedition of Waymouth was written by James 
Rosier, and published in 1605. It was printed by 
Purchas, with a few changes, in 1625; and reprinted 
by the Massachusetts Historical Society (Grenville 
copy) in 1843. This narrative forms the source of 
almost everything that is known about the voyage. 
It contains some perplexing passages; but when 
properly interpreted, it is found that they are con- 
sistent with other statements, and prove that the 
river explored was the Kennebec." 

Here are Dr. DeCosta's reasons, and they are con- 
clusive to the unbiased mind. He says: "In opposi- 
tion to the advocate of the Kennebec, it has been 
said that the high mountains seen by Waymouth were 
not the White Mountains, — for the reason that the 
White Mountains could not be seen, — but were the 
Camden Hills, towards which he went from Mon- 
hegan; and consequently that he reached the St. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 83 

George's River, which lies in that direction. It has 
been said also, that the White Mountains cannot be 
seen from that vicinity. This is merely an assump- 
tion. The White Mountains are distinctly visible 
in fair weather from the deck of a ship lying inside of 
Monhegan. Yet the mountains in question have 
less to do with the subject than generally supposed, 
since a careful examination of the obscure text shows 
that it is not necessary to understand Rosier as saying 




MONHEGAN HARBOR 



that in going to the river they sailed directly towards 
the mountains. His language shows that they ' came 
along to other islands more adjoining the main 
and in the road directly with the mountains.' Here 
it is not necessary to suppose that it was the course 
sailed that was direct, but rather that it was the road 
that was direct with the mountains, — the term road 
signifying a roadstead, or anchorage place at a distance 
from the shore, like that of Monhegan. Beyond 
question Waymouth saw both the White and the 



84 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Camden Mountains; but they do not form such an 
essential element in the discussion as both sides have 
fancied. Strachey really settles the question where 
he says that Waymouth discovered two rivers, — 
'that little one of Pamaquid,' and 'the most excellent 
and beneficyall river of Sachadehoc." This river at 
once became famous, and thither the Popham colo- 
nists sailed in 1607. In fact, the St. George's River 
was never talked about at that period, being even at 
the present time hardly known in geography, while 
the importance of the Kennebec is very generally 
understood. 

" The testimony of another early writer would 
alone prove sufficient to settle the question. In fact, 
no question would ever have been raised if New 
England writers had been acquainted with the works 
of Champlain at an earlier period. In July, 1605, 
Champlain visited the Kennebec, where the natives 
informed him that an English ship had been on the 
coast, and was then lying at Monhegan; and that 
the captain had killed five Indians belonging to the 
river. These were the five Indians taken by Way- 
mouth at Pentecost Harbor — who were supposed 
to have been killed, though at that time sailing on a 
voyage to England unharmed." 

One would not have been inclined to have given so 
much space to the matter, but for the arguments 
pro et con, which seem to have been pretty well dis- 
tributed through the Collections of the Maine His- 
torical Society's valuable compilations. The author 
has read them all carefully, along with Rosier and 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 85 

Strachey, and yet fails to see where the original ground 
of contention had a spoonful of earth in which to 
germinate its first seed. DeCosta's summing up is 
logical and according to the fact. The author can 
account for the acrid discussion started by Belknap, 
in no other way, than that an element of local pride 
may have entered into its maintenance. 

Here, with Waymouth, terminated the initiatory 
voyages extending from before 1492 by the naviga- 
tors of Continental Europe, from that moment when 
Henry VII. expressed his wonderment that a vessel 
had been sailed so far toward the Occident, — a thing 
"more divine than human, to sail by the west to the 
lands in the east, where spices grow." Then came 
the adventures of the Cabots. Then Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert essayed the fatal task, with Gosnold and Pring 
to make up the tale. 

The results of the English explorations were tragic 
in a way, plunging her into a war with Spain; for 
these exclusive possessions on the New World shores 
were "state prizes" when Elizabeth was on the throne 
and the English James I., her successor, and begat a 
protracted and bloody contest with Spain which Sir 
Francis Drake terminated with his destruction of 
the Spanish Armada; and a like conflict with France 
that was ended before Quebec when the heroic Wolf 
defeated Montcalm in September of 1759. Pema- 
quid's commercial treasures were contained in her 
fishery resources, which aroused the cupidity of 
France, Spain and Portugal. The two latter " had 
grasped and divided these regions between them- 



86 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

selves." The Pope had been interested and was 
called in to make a division of the spoils, which he 
did by issuing a bull, a state paper from the Vatican. 
It was immediately after, that France and England 
disputed this partition. Francis I. averred "Spain 
and Portugal are quietly dividing the whole country 
of America between themselves, without allowing 
me a brother's share. I would be very glad to see 
the clause in Adam's will which makes that continent 
their exclusive inheritance." 

England was not less indignant, and declared, 
"that discovery and prescription are of no avail unless 
followed by actual possession. " She set Drake out to 
enforce this doctrine, which he did, successfully, in 
1688. It was in the adherence to this principle that 
the ill-starred settlement at Sagadahoc was attempted, 
and up to which Waymouth had surveyed the road, 
and which Popham and Gilbert were to follow. 

Except that the islands have been denuded in part 
of their woods, as well as the shores about Pentecost 
Bay and up and down the Sagadahoc, and that where 
was once a wilderness, one sees the red roofs of the 
summer cottagers, with there and there a low-eaved 
farmhouse, a frail wharf making out into the waters, 
the landscape is much the same as when Waymouth 
strode across its sands. The shores are the same; the 
same buttressing rocks face the sea, the tides flow and 
ebb with ceasless regularity. As one turns one's 
back to these insistent evidences of a froward genera- 
tion to watch the receding of the tide, one essays to 
spell out the message of the huge waters in their 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD*? PEMAQUID 87 

lines of breaking surf whose flying spray scales the 
bastions of the shore, the liquid wools out of which 
the sun spins rainbows, and poets, prophecies. One 
loiters on the warm ledges that shelve gradually 
down to the sea, or burrows in the sun-baked sands, 
counting the white crests that narrow ever toward the 
horizon rim where the bronze of the offing is melted 
into the ruddy mists that pale and fade into the 
overhanging azure scarred with dark dissolving 
smokes, or along its middle marge be-patched with 
snowy sails, the mystery of the Sea, that comes and 
goes, to write upon the wrinkled shore, — 

"I with my hammer pounding evermore 
The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust, 
Strewing my bed, and, in another age, 
Rebuild a continent of better men. 
Then I unbar the doors ; my paths lead out 
The exodus of nations: I disperse 
Men to all shores that front the hoary main. 

"I, too, have arts and sorceries; 
Illusion dwells forever with the wave. 
I know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal 
With credulous and imaginative man; 
For, though he scoop my water in his palm, 
A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds, 
Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore, 
I make some coast alluring, some lone isle, 
To distant men, who must go there, or die." 

But one turns to the ragged pastures, the billowy 
fields of verdure and the mute woods for rest, and 
one's last thought of Waymouth is among the Dart- 
mouth hills, or snugly ensconced under his hawthorn 



88 YE ROMANCE OF OLD*? PEMAQUID 

hedge, dreaming of his voyages, recalling the fas- 
cinating savagery of the Sagadahoc shores ; its mead- 
begirt waters; its wilder life; nor does he forget the 
stout cross that he planted in the King's name, — 
perhaps at Chop Point, — the wild gale off Monhegan ; 



£s^ 




SEGUIN FROM THE SEWALL COTTAGE 



and one sees him at the village inn of a drowsy 
afternoon, his neighbors gathered about him, his 
jug of good brown ale at his elbow, with pipe in hand, 
while the tale grows. But I have pictured him as 
oft after his perilous voyagings, as under his own 
English roof when the night had softly fallen, soundly 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 89 

oblivious to the far-off pounding of the restless 
waters against Monhegan's rocks, while 

"Over his head were the maple buds, 
And over the tree was the moon, 
And over the moon were the starry studs 
That drop from the angels' shoon." 

This glimpse of Waymouth isolate upon the wide 
waters of the Atlantic, heading his vessel ever into 
the pregnant future, recalls the rhyme of the "Ancient 
Mariner"; and while Waymouth made his reckon- 
ings and watched his compass, sailing ever into the 
sunset, Rosier is silent. Under the rocks of Monhegan, 
like many another of later days, his tongue was loosed, 
and his hand began the tracing of the sunlit hours 
at olden Pemcuit, to make pictures for one to hang 
upon the walls of the Brain. 

One follows the curving shores, the broken or 
serrated contour of the sleepy bays, inlets and river- 
mouths that in these later days own to the delightful 
thrall of Romance and Tradition, or rounds their 
windy capes that fly the shreds of so many legends, to 
make of a far-off scudding sail the curious prow of 
the Argus-eyed Waymouth and one turns one's ear 
to the winds, but they are silent. The "Land ho!" 
at the masthead is long since hushed. The rains of 
three long centuries have washed away the footprints 
on the shore. The olden cross has rotted and fallen 
prone like the hand that planted it, yet neither are 
dead. The binnacle-lamp of the Archangel is blown, 
but above the reefs of old Sut-quin and the stone- 



90 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



yards of gray Monhegan flash the fires of a new 
prophecy. 

For the hail of Waymouth's sailors one hears the 
clang of a fog-bell, the wail of the siren when the mists 
come down and the snow-laden tempests beat inland 
from the sea, and the brash warning of a passing 
steamer; or, when the wind is right, the rush and roar 
of trans-continental embassies whose fingers of steel 
stretch from Fiddler's Reach, north and west, to 
girdle the Terra Incognita of the Cabots, and over 
which Europe has at last found a road to far Cathay. 




2S^ 



=v <~J ,ia»<img~; — — — =_- 



FORT ST. GEORGE 




JflfrlTlG" 



FORT ST. GEORGE 



OTHING much in the way of a 
certainty can be written of Pop- 
ham's town of Fort St. George 
as to its exact location, although 
its site has been designated by 
enthusiastic delvers into its con- 
temporary history, which for- 
tunately has been preserved to 
posterity through Strachey; but 
much can be conjectured, which, 
as surmises or suppositions, are 
like the down of the thistle, lighter than the winds, 
and have just about as much virtue. Strachey is 
the only authority, but he stands for the coming of 
the Popham and Gilbert expedition, its building of 
shelters and a fort, and its untoward desertion of the 
enterprise, rather than the topography of the settle- 
ment proper. Much has been written of a misleading 

93 




94 YB ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

character, which has smacked more of romance than 
of fact, and enough is left for the weaving of a few 
more dawn-colored romances. That an attempt at 
colonization was made is true, and sufficient reasons 
are apparent for its failure, the most potent of which, 
perhaps, was the susceptibility of its personnel to 
moral and social disintegration; for there was not -a 
woman in the entire colony, nor anything out of 
which a home-tie could be forged, or the loose strands 
of its human interests could be twisted into the slen- 
derest thread of loyalty to a communal purpose. 
The magnet of womanly sympathy, encouragement, 
solicitude and endurance, and as well gentle com- 
panionship, was absent. Unlike the Plymouth settle- 
ment, which was a colony of families, and which 
during its first winter on Cape Cod endured a most 
serious decimation of numbers through death, expo- 
sure and threatened starvation, landing as it did 
upon a shelterless shore in the bleak days of December, 
the Popham colony landed at the mouth of the Saga- 
dahoc in mid-August, and before the snow came were 
snugly ensconced in comfortable quarters, and unac- 
climated as they were, found but one name on 
their mortuary list as the trees threw out their leaves 
the following spring, that of Popham, which was, 
perhaps, as great a misfortune as could have happened 
to this embryo city. 

Strachey notes that Popham and Gilbert had along 
with them one hundred and twenty planters, but 
after all, the enterprise was a mining scheme. The 
land was fair enough, but "noe mines discovered no 



Ttf ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 95 

hope thereof, being the mayne intended benefit 
expected to uphold the charge of this plantacion, and 
the feare that all other wynters would prove like the 
first, the company by no means would stay any 
longer in the country," affords a key to so early a 




EARLY CHART 



relinquishment, which under other auspices should 
have proven a brilliant success. The anticipations 
of these first adventurers at Sagadahoc were tinged 
with a rosy halo, and one can in a way understand the 
measure of the disappointment which impelled the 



96 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

abandonment of so feasible a project, and as well the 
character of the colonists in their lack of a requisite 
stability or persistence. 

Strachey says, — "one hundred and twenty 
planters," but one is not to understand that he 
referred to this Gilbert and Popham contingent in an 
agricultural sense; for the word, as Strachey used it, 
was synonymous with colonist. One comes across 
the term first in Hakluyt, and he alludes to the 
colonization of the Americas as "Westerne Planting." 
For that reason one may the more readily accept the 
exodus of 1608 from old Sabino as a natural outcome 
of an ignorance of the pent-up resources of this 
Quinibequi country, and a lack of interest the settle- 
ment might otherwise have taken in the soil ; for here 
were the most fertile spots of New England stretched 
up and down the banks of the Kennebec, a virgin soil 
that after a century of continuous cultivation affords 
a rich return to the husbandman and the sower of 
seed. 

It was a well-sheltered country, a snugly ensconced 
valley that to-day charms as well as fascinates with 
its sylvan beauties, and, perhaps, had St. George been 
planted in a less exposed situation, or more sheltered 
from the bleak winds and their relentless smitings, 
and the audible terrors of the gale, it might have been 
different in the end. Had they raised the walls of 
their town within the shadows of the towering ever- 
greens that at that time covered the west shore of the 
Sagadahoc instead of upon the huge shoulder of 
Sabino Hill, the tumult of the winter tempests would 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 97 

have been softened into the low breathings of the 
woods; for, in the deeps of the forest one is oblivious 
to the wildness of the storm or of the tempestuous 
days, and one hardly hears more than the frou-frou 
of the fleet-footed, on-rushing winds as they swoop 
over the pliant thatching of its roofs. The dense 
woods would have afforded companionship and 
comfort, as well as a suggestion of snug privacy; nor 
would these colonists have been more isolate amid 
the trees or under the beneficent hover of their wide- 
reaching arms. 

One who has crossed the uplands of the open 
country of a blustery winter's day to pass into the 
seclusion of a densely wooded highway where Nature 
seems to have gone to sleep while the world outside 
is in a whirl and tumult of blinding drift, will under- 
stand what is meant by the shelter of the woods. I 
have crossed the field of a certain upland farm with 
which I have had some close and loving intimacy, 
when Eurus was speeding the pick of his windy 
stables, when one's footprints across the waste of 
pallid winter were obliterated, once they were left 
behind, when one could hardly more than see the 
sun's glimmer through the flying drift swept along 
with an impetuosity to make one turn one's back to its 
ceaseless battery to get a long breath, as if one were 
crossing the medial moraine of a disintegrate glacier 
of resistless flow, and then I have passed within 
the fringe of low-brooding pines, the broidery of the 
woodland's edge, and once within the mystery of the 
winter woods, the silence is almost audible. The 



98 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



sun is out of its mist and throws slant shadows across 
the white floor; the tit-mice and companionable 
grosbeaks immediately open a conference as to the 
reason of this intrusion, while a stray rabbit throws 
his long ears back as if he did not intend to lose a 
word of this woodland colloquy which does not last 
for long, for no sooner does a chickaree begin his 




SABINO SHORE 



shrill upbraidings than the fearless black-caps are 
pecking at the twigs of the underbrush and tops of 
the woodland weeds, while the scarlet head-dress 
and the flaming wing of the grosbeak shot like a 
shuttle of fire in and out the dusky warp of the pines 
and hemlocks. Anon a decayed limb crashed down 
from the heights of the wooden wall above, torn 
from its lodgment by the shock of the gale; or per- 
haps one caught the monody when the wind essayed 






YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 99 

to fiddle a bar of Nature's music with one limb for 
a bow and another for a string, that mayhap, may 
have suggested to the musical Moor, the rebec — 
of the eighth century, — or some huge tree nudged 
its neighbor with its gnarly elbow, a weird note of 
complaining; a nomad fox breaks cover, disturbed 
at its burrowing for the mole's nest he has ferreted 
out with his sharp nose; or from out a shower of 
snow at one's feet a grouse booms to haste with 
hurtling wings down the vistas of the purple tree- 
trunks. 

Other than these incidents of wood-life, the semi- 
audible respirations of the vibrant foliage, silence 
reigns while the gale irons the wide fields and pastures 
flat, or planes the woodland tops into a floor of inter- 
lacing twigs, and these lower rooms of this domicile 
of Nature are delightful lounging-places for their 
wild tenants. Popham did not know the woods as 
did those who came after him, otherwise he would 
have walled in his settlement among the Druids of 
the primeval Sagadahoc. And, had he done so, he 
would have heard the notes I have heard, and would 
have got acquainted with its dwellers. Instead, he 
sought the outlook of the surging sea and its bleak 
shelterless approaches where his house-roofs trembled 
at every buffeting of the snow-laden tempest to choke 
their thresholds with 

"the whirl-dance of the blinding storm," 
or, 

"All day the gusty north- wind bore 
The loosening drift its breath before ; " 

LOFC. 



100 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

to make more emphatic and more lonesome 

"A solitude made more intense 
By dreary-voiced elements, 
The shrieking of the mindless wind," 

and no wonder his men shrank from the white terror 
of winter in a pathless wilderness. 

This town of Fort St. George was based upon the 
patent issued as of April 10th, 1605, to "sondry 
knights, gentlemen, and others of the citty of Bristoll, 
Exeter, and the towne of Plymouth, and other places" 
and which, in contra-distinction to the London Com- 
pany which was operating on the James River, 
was known as the Plymouth Company, for which Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges, and Popham, Lord Chief Justice 
of England, stood active sponsors. 

Upon Waymouth's return from Sagadahoc the 
story of his voyage and his discoveries was published, 
which attracted much attention from the curious. 
The Indians, however, were the star performers, and 
altogether, Sir Ferdinando Gorges took great cour- 
age from the adventure. The Plymouth Patent had 
been secured from James I., the express purpose of 
which was declared to be the "Making of habitations, 
by leading out and planting colonies, subjects of Great 
Britain. ' ' The patentees were declared" adventurers' ' 
and were restricted to the voluntary assent of the 
colonist in their recruiting their emigration plant. 
Their grant covered the mythic Norombegua from 
38° north to 45° north, by which the claims of the 
French were utterly ignored. Its powers of govern- 






YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 101 

ment were extended over a period of twenty-one 
years, with right to impose taxes, collect the same, 
coin money, and to regulate and conduct all matters 
in accordance with the needs of the anticipated 
colony. 

In 1606, Gorges sent out a ship in connection with 
Sir John Popham under Challons; but this venture 
was an ill-starred one. Challons, sailing his course 
too far to the south, fell in with some Spaniards who 
speedily made termination of this voyage by capturing 




vessel, master and crew. Unaware of their loss, 
Gorges and Popham despatched another vessel under 
Thomas Hannam, of which Martin Pring was master. 
They failed to find Challons, but made some explora- 
tion and sailed back to England. Meantime, the 
savages had been placed in training. Gorges calls 
them the means " under God, of putting on foot and 
giving life to all our plantations, " so the project for a 
permanent colony had grown to the perfect plan, and 
while the ranks of the planters were being re-enforced, 
the fitting out of two ships was begun. Strachey 
differs somewhat in his account of Pring's voyage. 



102 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

It was in May of 1606 that Sir John Popham 
"prepared a tall ship, well-furnished, belonging to 
Bristoll and the river of Severne with many planters," 
of which one Haines was "maister." All went well 
until the ship came to Graciosa, one of the Azore 
group, which is strung on the line of thirty-nine 
degrees, west longitude, where the Spaniards, home- 
ward bound from Mexico, swooped down on the 
English "fly", and shifting her helm, bore away for 
Spain. One of the Spanish fleet, by a connivance of the 
English who were captive on her, was carried out of 
her reckoning so that "the Spanish pilott not know- 
ing where he was, unlooked for fell upon the coast of 
Fraunce, within the river of Burdeux, where they 
would have concealed the English, and stowed them 
therefore under the hatches, had they not happely 
bene perceaved by some of the French, which came 
abourd and obteyned them of the Spainiard, and 
carried them ashore." The other of the English 
crew were not so fortunate, as they were taken to 
Spain where they were "dispersed and made slaves 
in their gallions." Martyn Pryn (Pring) was the 
captain of the English vessel. With this first disaster 
to the colonization schemes of the Plymouth Com- 
pany, no other effort was made until the following 
year, when George Popham, in the Gift of God, of 
London, and Raleigh Gilbert in the Mary and John 
from the same port "brake ground from Plymouth in 
June, 1607. These were the vessels which had the 
one hundred and twenty planters, and on the twenty- 
fifth of the same month they were at Graciosa, the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 103 

scene of Captain Pring's mishap of the previous year. 
They took in wood and water on the twenty-eighth 
at Flores and Cornez, whence they headed westward, 
keeping the same course until the twenty-seventh 
of July, where they took soundings in twenty fathoms 
of water. They were on the Banks where they 
"fisht some three howers, and took neere two hundred 
of cod, very great fish, and where they might have 
laden their ship in a lyttle time." 

For some reason of necessity, the Mary and 
John had been left at the Azores to follow Popham 
later. She got away, barely avoiding the Dutch who 
were prowling about those waters. Gilbert laid his 
course west to make his landfall off the hills of La 
Have, Nova Scotia. After a call at La Have, the 
Mary and John was headed for Cape Sable. Round- 
ing this headland, they entered the Bay of Fundy, 
the earlier stamping-ground of DuMonts and Cham- 
plain, and from whence these two latter projected 
their explorations of 1604-5. Skirting the shores of 
Fundy, Gilbert found himself again headed south, 
and trimming his ship for the Penobscot waters, the 
lookout began his westward searching for the three 
double-peaks of the Camden Hills. It was not long 
before those eagerly watched-for landmarks so accu- 
rately described by Waymouth and Pring, loomed 
against the sky above the fringe of wooded shore that 
hedged Penobscot Bay. Then Matinicus and her 
scattered flock of reefs and islets were passed, to 
ultimately drop anchor under the lee of Monhegan, 
to which two years before Waymouth had given the 



104 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

name, St. George. Gilbert landed at once upon the 
island, and there he found a cross, but whether it was 
placed there by Weymouth, or some other navigator, 
is uncertain. The following morning, as Gilbert was 
shaking out his sheets intending to shift his berth to 
the mouth of the Kennebec, a sail broke, ghost-like, 
through the rim of the horizon, sheer white against the 
purple mists. As it came nearer, Gilbert identified 
the craft as Popham's. They held anchorage together 
at Monhegan until the next morning. The log of 
Popham's ship does not seem to have been preserved, 
in fact, only the story of Gilbert remains to us, which 
seems to have been considered as the only one of any 
importance. The Popham interest seems to have 
been in the minority, as was evident when the deser- 
tion of Fort St. Georges was decided upon. 

Winding their lines, they then stood in toward the 
mainland dropping the lead as they went, to sight 
land on the thirtieth. It lay off to the north-west, 
but night came before they had reached the shore; 
"for which they were constrayned to beare of a little 
from the land, and lye a hull all that night, where 
they found aboundance of fish very large and great, 
and the water deepe hard abourd the shoare, eighteen 
or twenty fathome. " Strachey says they stood in for 
the^ shore in the afternoon of the thirty-first, and 
"came to an anchor under an island, for all this coast 
is full of islands, but very sound and good for shipping 
to passe by them, and the water deepe hard abourd 
them; they had not bene at anchor two howers, 
when there came a Spanishe shallop to them from the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 105 

shoare, in her eight salvadg men and a little salvadg 
boy, whoe at first rowed about them and would not 
come abourd, notwithstanding they proffered them 
bread, knives, beades, and other small trifles; but 
having gazed awhile upon the ship they made a shewe 
to departe; howbeyt when they were a little from 
them, they returned againe and boldly came up to 
the shipp, and three of them stayed all night abourd, 
the rest departed and went to the shoare, shewing by 
signes that they would returne the next daye." 
This was the last day of July. 

To continue Strachey's account, which is infinitely 
more interesting and vividly descriptive than the 

re-vamping of another, and as well exceeding pictur- 
esque though quaintly simple in style, on the next 
day, which was the first of August, "the same sal- 
vadges returned with three women with them in 
another biskey shallop, bringing with them many 
beaver skyns to exchaunge for knyves and beades; the 
saganio of that place they told them was Messamot, 
seated upon a river not farr off, which they called 
Emanuell. The salvadges departing, they hoisted 
out theire bote; and the pilot, Captain R. Davies, 
with twelve others, rowed into the bay wherein their 
ship rode, and landed on a galland island, where 
they found gooseberries, strawberries, raspices, hurts 
(whortleberries), and all the island full of high trees 



106 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

of divers sorts: after they had delighted themselves 
there awhile, they returned abourd againe and 
observed the place to stand in 44 degrees one- 
third." 

About midnight, under a bright moon, the wind 
being fair from the northeast, they slipped anchor 
and sailed up the trend of the coast, to discover 
themselves, as the dawn broke, close by the shore, 
or as Strachey says, "a league from yt, and saw many 
islands of great bignes and many great sownds going 
betwixt them, but made proofe of none of them, 
but found great stoare of fish all along the coast," 
which brings them to the mouth of the Sagadahoc. 

The island left behind in "44 degrees one-third" 
was probably Mount Desert, although some writers 
locate their first landfall at Monhegan island. If 
they sailed from midnight until dawn before they 
found themselves "thwart of the cape or headland, 
which stands in 43 degrees, " Mount Desert would be 
the reasonable deduction, as Monhegan is just 
opposite the outflow of the Sagadahoc and barely a 
dozen miles away, while from Mount Desert a ten- 
knot breeze would take them to Small Point, or its 
vicinity, in eight to nine hours, and Strachey draws 
a picture of the landscape. 

"This cape is a lowland, shewing white like sand, 
but it is white rocks, and a strong tide goeth there." 
After this allusion to the physical characteristics of 
the shore, Strachey is somewhat obscure. He lays 
the course of the adventurers and makes the leagues 
over which they sailed up and down the coast to cover 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD** PEMAQUID 107 

a somewhat erratic voyage which covered a space of 
two days during which the anchor kept to its chock. 
It was about ten o'clock at night on the sixth of 
August they dropped anchor under the lee of Mon- 
hegan. Strachey says: "In the morning they were 
envyroned every way with islands they told upward 
of thirty island from abourd shipp, very good sayling 




THE CLIFFS OF MONHEGAN 



out between them." Strachey says: "They weyed 
anchor, thereby to ride in more saffety howsoever 
the wind should happen to blow; how be yt before 
they put from the island they found a crosse set up, 
one of the same which Captain George Weyman, in his 
discovery, for all after occasions, left upon this island." 
The finding of the cross identifies the island as Mon- 
hegan. 



108 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

In reading Strachey, one notes the absence of all 
allusion to George Popham, until, moored safely 
under the lee of Monhegan, he mans his shallop on 
the tenth of August for an exploration of the "little 
Pemaquid" river, taking along Skidwarroes as a 
guide, but Gilbert had anticipated him by three days; 
for about midnight of the seventh of August the 
latter set off in his boat with fourteen men and the 
Indian Skidwarroes, "and rowed to the westward 
from their shipp, to the river of Pemaquid, which 
they found to be four leagues distant from their 
shipp, where she rode. The Indian brought them 
to the salvadges' houses, where they found a hun- 
dred men, women and chilclrene; and theire com- 
mander, or sagamo, amongst them, named Nahan- 
ada," the same that had sailed over with Captain 
Hannam the year before, and this may be considered 
the first visit of state on these shores. As Gilbert 
and his men approached the Indian settlement the 
savages seized their weapons of war and prepared 
themselves to resist an attack from these strangers, 
but through the assurance of Skidwarroes, who held 
a brief talk with Nahanacla, they threw down their 
bows and arrows and Nahanada set the example of 
comity, "and embraced them, and made them 
much welcome, and entertayned them with much 
chierfulness, and did they likewise him; and after 
two howers thus interchangeably spent, they re- 
turned abourd againe." The next day was held 
the first church service on the shores of New 
England. One would like to have attended upon 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 109 

its ordinances. Here is what the ancient Strachey 
says: 

"Sonday, the chief of both shipps, with the great- 
est part of all the company, landed on the island 
where the crosse stood, the which they called the 
St. George's Island, and heard a sermon delivered 
unto them by Mr. Seymour, his preacher, and soe 
returned abourd againe." The relation is meagre 
and one has to make up the setting of the scene. 
One would like to know the location of the "crosse ", 
for it was no doubt in its neighborhood where these 
simple acts of worship took place. It must have 
been in a sheltered spot where the arching limbs of 
the trees brooded quiet. The blue of the sky showed 
in broken patches through the interlacing of twigs, 
leaf-laden and cooling in their flecks of shadow that 
made mosaics of color on the sward whereon the 
people sat while the preacher read the Living Word, 
and descanted upon its truth, its promise, and its 
prophecy, to recall to one's mind the picture of 
another Preacher who taught the multitude on the 
sands of Galilee, another sermon by the sea, which 
may well have given the Reverend Seymour his 
text. 

The birds must have had some inkling of the event, 
for they had summoned all their singers. From 
early dawn the feathered tribes had voiced the great 
anthem which was to precede the morning prayer, 
and one can hear these choristers as the keel of the 
first boat grates on the sands of old Monhegan. 



110 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

From their leaf-latticed swinging cotes 
The orioles dropped their liquid notes; 
The jay, who knew a note or two, 
Voiced his rough jargon as he flew; 
The peevish wren forgot to scold ; 
The mottled partridge anon rolled 
His drum-sticks on his cushioned log; 
And, like an ill-bred, barking dog, 
The crow his croaking prophecy 
From steepled hemlock, clamorously 
Proclaimed, incorrigible, rude 
Alone, of all the tuneful brood. 
The robin, in his vest of red, 
His dulcet tenor piped o'erhead; 
The surpliced sparrow in the brush 
Vied with the Quaker-mantled thrush; 
And cat-birds, haunting every tree, 
Mimicked in turn each melody, 
Or pitched for all the common key 
Of this sweet tide of minstrelsy; 
While linnet, lark, and all the throng 
Of feathered folk filled out the song; 
And through the leafy wood, vibrant 
With rhythmic touch, accompaniment 
The harpist Wind strummed, indolent, 
On stately shaft and limb up-bent; 
The while, the swash of waves below 
Beat the time with their restless flow. 

Whatever may have been the opinion of the 
Reverend Seymour and his congregation, I think I 
should have preferred this medley of the birds to 
St. Giles, Cripplegate, and its time-stained naves 
and its stately dignities, its processional of choir- 
boys, their treble voices and the resounding organ 
notes. The things that men make are good to look 
upon, but the things God makes are better. Tastes 
differ, but it is only when one desires to discover the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 111 

depth of his affection for his friend that he quarrels 
with him. Here is no quarrel, however, with your 
formal churchman, — only a gentle difference. This 
time the preacher stood on the Rock, and it should 
have suffused his soul with a divine unction. 

One sees the slender string of the ship-folk ascend- 
ing the shore with Popham and Gilbert in the lead, 




THE HERONS 



the minister 

between them, 

while the chorus 

in the tree-tops pours 

upon the ambient air 

the liquid notes that 

run down the slant 

bars of sunlight to 

stir the woodland 

shadows with vibrant melody. The people disposed 

upon the soft needles of the pines, the Word is 

spoken, — "The Lord is in his Holy temple; let 

all the earth keep silence before him! " 

The bird-throats are silent. At that strange 
utterance Nature is hushed. From the bent wor- 
shippers rises the Confession. There is an especial 
meaning and fitness in these words, — "That we may 
hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To 



112 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the glory of thy holy name. Amen. " There is need 
that these forget not these words that the lips have 
spoken, for a mighty task is before them. Then the 
birds join in the Gloria Patri; and what a burst of 
melodic harmony when the Venite is reached! They 
have opened wide their feathered pipes, and the throb- 
bing sea makes a resonant sound-board, adding its 
hoarse bass when the Te Deum breaks upon the air. 
Never before was creed repeated, or Litany read in 
so magnificent a cathedral, whose foundations were 
the sea itself, and whose domain was the uncon- 
taminate wilderness. Here was one of 

" God's first temples," 

whose ceiling was the dome of the sky, and whose 
frescoes were the inimitable traceries of limb and 
twig; whose naves were the wide-limbed canopies of 
the woodland tops; whose pillars were the living 
witnesses of its builder; whose floors were the mosaics 
of the centuries strewn with the living green of the 
grasses, and figured with the wild flowers that found 
within their verdancy an abundant riancy of form 
and color, unmatchable and fresh from the looms of 
Nature, and whose luminants are the great orbs of 
the sky and the lamps of the stars; whose organist is 
the mighty wind, and whose anthems are the music 
of the spheres. 

How weak and puny the voice of this preacher with 
the roar of many waters pent up in this solitude, and 
yet the day was still and all these great tones from 
Nature's harp likewise hushed! One feels that these 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 113 

men must have been impressed with the solemnity 
of the occasion, and of which their isolation from their 
kind must have been a potent reminder of their utter 
dependence upon the Divine Providence for the future 
shaping of their destinies. They had come hither to 
found a new state. They were the workmen who 
were to hew out and pin together the framework of a 
new civilization, and Time was to prove their labors. 
Theirs was the privilege of making their handiwork 
famous for all time, and whatever their ambitions, 
their hopes for personal aggrandizement, their oppor- 
tunities were unlimited in their scope, for Nature had 
shaken her apron loose and at their feet lay all her 
treasures. They were environed by the riches of the 
sea, and the illimitable resources of the fields and 
forests upon the edge of which they were about to 
seek out their building spot for the roofs and towers 
which were to grow from the first up-thrown shovel- 
ful of Sagadahoc's brown earth. 

Were I a painter possessing great idealistic powers, 
and whose every brush-mark on the canvas was a 
counterfeit of Nature's inmost truth, and owned to 
the warmth of the human touch, a Zeuxis who painted 
flowers to beguile the bees, I should essay to fasten 
upon the speaking canvas this most memorable and 
historic scene, to build those leafy naves anew with 
my brush, the living lights and shadows upon those 
bowed heads, and the preacher's face upturned to the 
beneficent beams of the morning sun, the blades of 
grass wrinkling in the summer breeze, the vibrant 
atmosphere that mellowed that summer day, and even 



114 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the lichen-stained boles of the pillars that stretched 
their stately lengths to towering heights, and the 
nodding flowers that painted the cathedral floors. A 
great subject, greater and more noble than the 
footprint of Columbus on the shore of the Greater 
Antilles shadowed by the darkling folds of the banner 
of Spain within whose sinuous lines lurked the tragedy 
of the Incas, or the Lorraine Joan of Arc of Bastien 
LePage among the apple-trees of her Domremy 
garden. But the painter of this first service on the 
wild shores of old Monhegan is as yet unborn; for he 
would need to be a Mendelssohn of the brush and 
palette who could leave his heart moist and pulsating 
with every touch. The same key-note was sounded 
at Plymouth thirteen years later but with the sim- 
plicity of the Puritan without the stole or surplice of 
Seymour, but which was more pregnant for the 
future, far, as it proved. It was a rugged faith, that 
of the Puritan, planted in a rugged soil, a winter faith 
planted amid the snows of barren Cape Cod, and that 
bloomed with the arbutus as the spring days blew up 
from the south gorged with perennial sweetness, and 
with which one associates the wholesome beauty and 
femininity of John Alden's sweetheart. It was such 
as she who made the civilization and the future of 
Plymouth possible. 

But leave visions to the old and dreams to the 
young, and the argument as well, whether this 
Protestant service actually occurred on Monhegan 
to the captious critic, some modern seer whose 
Mormon Goggles reveal to him more than fell to the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 115 

share of good old Strachey, and in whom one finds 
the veracious recorder, the lone fountain of living 
water on an otherwise barren hillside. "Accurate 
history!" Well, who has discovered it ? Nor does one 
desire deductions upon something that lies back of the 
memory of man, but the rather the best knowledge, 
before the exposition of Don Quixote and the Wind- 
mill, — the opinion of one who argues from the 




BALD HEAD, CAPE SMALL POINT 



opinion of another, and from which one presages 
windy weather. It is human nature; but men may 
talk, and the argument, like Tennyson's "Brook" 
goes on forever, and one opinion is good. The eminent 
DeCosta, whose summing up of the wordy situation 
is unbiased and uncolored by locality, leaves little to 
be said. It is a harmless plaything for the dilettante 
in antiquarian matters. 

On the Monday following the Christian observ- 
ances of the Sabbath at Monhegan, Popham and 



116 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Gilbert manned their boats with fifty men and set 
out on a second expedition to the mainland. They 
had the Indian Skiclwarroes along, and as they 
reached the mouth of the river, they were met by 
Nahanada and a force of savages well-armed with 
the primitive bow and arrow, who were inclined to 
oppose the landing of the adventurers, and, "never- 
theless, after one hower, they all suddenly withdrew 
themselves into the woodes, nor was Skidwares 
desirous to returne with them any more abourd." 
Deserted by their Indian guide, they rowed to "the 
further side of the river and there remained on the 
shoare for that night." Their ships still being under 
the lee of Monhegan, they returned to them as the 
afternoon wore, with the intention of the next day 
pulling up their anchors and setting "saile to goe 
for the river of Sachadehoc," and which they did, 
keeping a west course which carried them past 
Seguin, where they found themselves becalmed. At 
midnight there "arose a mightye storme upon them, 
which put them in great danger, by reason they 
were soe neere the shoare and could not gett off." 
But they rode out the gale safely, which lasted 
until noon of Friday, the fourteenth, making the 
shelter of "two little islands" (The Cuckolds), 
where they found anchorage until Saturday, when 
they set their course to the eastward to drop anchor 
under "the island of Sut-quin." It is evident that 
the next day, Sunday, was a busy one; for the 
record is, that, "In the morning, Captain Popham 
sent his shallop to helpe in the Mary and John, 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 117 

which weyed anchors, and being calme, was soone 
towed in and anchored by the Gift's side." 

The following Monday was to usher in the activi- 
ties of the locality. It was on that day that the 
exploration of the river was undertaken, and Stra- 
chey says, "They sailed up into the river forty 
leagues, and found it to be a very gallant river, 
very deepe, and seldome lesse water than three 
fathomes, when they found sest (rest); whereupon 
they proceeded no farther, but in their returne 
homewards they observed many goodly islands 
therein, and many braunches of other small rivers 
falling into yt." 

The 18th, which was the day following their cruise 
up the picturesque stream at the mouth of which 
they were to lay the sills of their abodes, " they all 
went ashore, and there made choise of a place for 
their plantation." Some discussion has arisen as to 
where they landed. Belknap asserts "that they 
landed on a peninsula," and according to the Col- 
lections of the Massachusetts Historical Society it 
was upon what became known as Parker's Island, 
which by an old map lay between the Kennebec 
on the west, the Jeremysquam Bay on the east, and 
the sea on the south, and which was divided from 
Arrows wick by a small strait. This island was 
obtained of the savages by John Parker in 1650, 
who is declared to have been its first occupant after 
the breaking up of the colony of 1607. It was thus 
broached by Governor Sullivan, who wrote the argu- 
ment above referred to, in which he is opposed by 



118 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Purchas, Ogilby and other eminent writers. It is 
further noted that in 1807 some Bath antiquarians 
went down to the mouth of the Sagadahoc and made 
some scrutiny of the alleged place where the Popham 
roofs went up. They found some evidence that led 
them to locate the spot to which they gave the name 
of Point Popham, and Point Popham it still remains. 
It is said that evidences have been found of an old- 
time settlement on the south end of Parker's Island, 
also at Stage Island, but whatever they may have 
been, or whoever it was that first broke ground upon 
those islands, is a matter wholly of conjecture, as they 
must have been vacated before 1680, when the sav- 
ages began an organized warfare on the English 
who inhabited the lands east of the Piscataqua. 
That was fully a century and a quarter before the 
exploring party from Bath went colony hunting, 
and whatever might have been their opinion as to 
the virtue of their findings, they found no date on 
the coin by which the time of its minting could be 
established. 

Strachey settles the locality when he refers to it 
as "being almost an island, of a good bigness, being 
in a province called by the Indians Sabino, so-called 
of a sagamo or chief commander under the grand 
bassaba." Sabino was the name of a locality, 
rather than a province. The name of the neighbor- 
ing country was Pemaquid which was broken up 
into dependencies, comprised by Muscongus and 
Sagadahoc. The peninsula of Sabino was a place of 
wide outlooks, and at flood tide almost surrounded 










¥> 






YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 121 

by the sea. To the eastward are the currents of the 
Sagadahoc, and the Sasanoa, locally known as Hock- 
amock, or Hellgate. This latter goes out through 
Sheepscot Bay, and between these two effluents is 
the wide reach of bleached sands and shells, Saga- 
dahoc beach. The tides and storm-driven waters 
that make up the Sagadahoc have pared the Sabino 
shore into a peninsula. Here are a hundred acres or 
more of sand-drift, which in the aboriginal days may 
have been covered with the dense woods common to 
the section, and of which hardly any suggestion 
remains. It is a bleak, windy jutting of land hemmed 
in almost entirely by the restless sea. Here are 
rugged stone headlands above these sands from 
which one may follow the coast shores up and down 
with a devouring vision; for on either hand is spread 
out a fascinating picture. It is an unpaintable 
picture, there is so much of it. And here, too, is a 
little pond, tree-shadowed and secluded, its waters 
fresh and palatable, as it seeps through the sands 
that hold it apart from the salt of the bay. This 
pond has neither inlet or outlet, but abounds in 
pickerel. Seaward, are the ragged and heaped-up 
rocks of mountainous Seguin. Nearer land are the 
Herons, and to the eastward the huge pile of Mon- 
hegan looms against the middle distance like the hull 
of a leviathan craft, the le Nef of the observant 
Champlain. When the shadows fall athwart the ruddy 
waters as the sun goes down, the flames flash almost 
simultaneously from Seguin and Monhegan to burn 
until the dawn smites them with faint pallor and 



122 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

they are relieved from their night-watch at the 
Sagadahoc's harbor-mouth. 

Charming to-day as is this medley of sea and shore, 
broken, sand-girdled, or jagged with jutting reefs and 
needles, in its aboriginal days, in its native wild- 
ness it must have been more so. 

Could one exercise the art of Agrippa to convert 
this modern landscape by the sea into its original and 
primitive self, a picture of unshorn grandeur would 




HUNNEWELL BEACH 



be unfolded to the vision never to be forgotten, and 
to be approximated only within the heart of the un- 
touched back-woods of Maine, if such may be said 
to exist. Here was a mighty forest crowding down 
to the yellow sands that were ever being ground 
between the land and the sea, huge, towering shafts 
of golden-hearted pine, stately spars of spruce, dense 
copses of fir, all interspersed with the deciduous 
growths, the gnarled beech, the oaks and the maples, 
and the big-bodied white birch from which the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 123 

savage stripped the bark for his canoe, and the sheath- 
ing of his wigwam. The tiny rootlets of the spruce 
gave him his thread, as well the wiccopy his twine. 
There were open places in the woodlands where the 
Indians grew their maize, and there were open place 
on the shore where they feasted upon the shell-fish 
once so abundant here. Sabino was a favorite sum- 
mer resort of the savage, as it is to-day of the 
summer lounger. Even to this day among the huge 
shell heaps that witness to their voracious appetites 
extending over no one knows how many centuries, 
are found the vestiges of a considerable occupation; 
for here at Sabino seems to have been the depot 
of a savage war supply, and possibly the factory where 
were turned out the rude weapons by which they 
protected themselves against their enemies and as 
well by which they replenished their larders and their 
treasures of furs, alike. Here are fragments of stone 
in all stages of manufacture from the broken or 
blocked-out stone to the finished product of arrow- 
head, spear-head, tomahawk, which indicate the 
savage arsenal. Stone-wrought tools have been 
found here, and human remains, as well. No one 
knows what could have been the state of the arts 
among the aborigines of an earlier period but enough 
is here indicated to arouse lively conjecture as to the 
aboriginal industries carried on at this place, and as 
to the character of the implements used as tools in 
the shaping of these finished stone products. But one 
may conjecture, and weave puerile thoughts with all 
the looms of the imagination running on full time, 



124 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



and the mystery remains, as it ever will, with only 
these mute mementoes of a dead race lying across 
the palm of one's hand, the cuneiforms, the keys to 
which were lost when the hand that used them was 
stilled. 

Old settlers here will tell you that even within the 
space of a half-century the north shore has under- 
gone some change. Those who can remember the 
scene before the Government Works were established 




S^JTT 



CAPE SMALL POINT 



at Small Point, can recall the huge dunes of shifting 
sands that were scooped, ironed, heaped up, and 
gorged by the unfettered winds as they blew in, across 
or over its shelving shore. One can hardly imagine 
the gathered lodges of these workers in stone, a labor 
that must have been carried on during the milder 
portions of the season, and the family contingents 
that came along with them, and who, from the 
abundant insignia of shells, must have enjoyed at 
least three clam-bakes a day. What troops of squaws 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 125 

must have invaded the adjoining flats for the suc- 
culent oyster, the clam and the lobster! What 
feasts prevailed with oysters, as Jocelyn describes 
them, nine inches in length, that had to be cut into 
three pieces before they could be eaten, and what 
gormandizers those Sagadahoc savages must have 
been to have piled up such immense heaps of shells 
over so extensive an area! But the shelter afforded 
by the pines that once hooded this north shore has 
been obliterated. The land has been denuded, 
and in their place are the cots of the fishers and the 
solid walls of the government constructions. And 
here was a different race from the tribes to the east- 
ward, for the pottery, implements of copper, and orna- 
ments of copper, "and the remains of Menikuk, the 
darts, bone stillettos found among the oyster deposits 
of Damariscotta, the shell-heaps of Ped-coke-gowak," 
and the offal accretions of thickly-settled "Arambec" 
are absent from the deposits at Sagadahoc. These 
stone remains suggest a people skilled in the rude 
arts of a far-off period. 

It was here among these evidences of a once indus- 
trial people that the "planters" from the Gift of God 
and the Mary and John landed on that 19th of 
August of 1607, where they had a sermon delivered to 
them by their preacher, after which the King's Com- 
mission was read, and the laws of the colony 
expounded. It recalls the way in which the old- 
time district school was opened on the first day of 
the term, when each listened with a mental reservation 
to obey in so far as it was consistent with his personal 



126 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

ideas of the matter in hand. It was a motley com- 
munity, no doubt, that made up this little band, and 
there were many morally unkempt and unruly- 
disposed among these first adventurers recruited from 
the ale-house, the parish poor-house and the Newgate 
gaol, as well. Then was held the first town-meeting, 
and the officers were chosen. George Popham was 
President; Rawleigh Gilbert, Admiral; Edward Har- 
low, Master of Ordance; Robert Davis, Sergeant- 
major; James Davis, Captain of the Fort; Richard 
Seymour, Chaplain; Elias Best, Marshal; and George 
Carew, Searcher. This comprised the official force 
of the colony, and upon this inaugural occasion the 
one hundred and twenty " planters" participated 
and although nothing is said by Strachey whether the 
ballots were collected in a hat or otherwise, it to be 
assumed that an election followed the nomination, 
so it may be assumed as well, that here was exercised 
the inestimable franchise of the ballot-box. It was a 
folk-mote, and the first of its kind hereabout, and the 
pre-monitor of the present town-meeting. Strachey 
does not name the moderator, but it was probably 
Popham who made up the slate and saw that it was 
filled to his satisfaction. This erection of the little 
statehood was enacted on shore, upon the consumma- 
tion of which Popham and his constituency returned 
to their individual vessels. 

On the twentieth, all sought the shore, "and there 
began to entrench and make a fort, and to buyld a 
storehouse." This work was continued in for the 
seven days following. Strachey records on the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 127 

twenty-eighth, — "Whilst most of the hands labored 
hard about the fort, and the carpenters about the 
buylding of a small pinnace, the president overseeing 
and applying every one to his worke, Captain Gilbert 
departed in his shallop upon a discovery to the west- 
ward, and sayled all day by many gallant islands." 
He anchored at night under the headlands of Semiamis 
(Cape Elizabeth) . The next day they went as far as 
the Isle of Bacchus. He gives the first description 




POPHAM POINT 



of Casco Bay which was overlooked by Champlain in 
his voyage of 1605 to Malabarre. He says, "betwixt 
the said headland and Semiamis, and the river of 
Sagodahoc, is a very great bay; in the which there 
lyeth soe many islands and soe thicke and soe neere 
togither, that can hardly be discerned the nomber, 
yet may a shipp passe betwixt, the greatest parte of 
them having seldome lesse water than eight or ten 



128 Y** ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

fathome about them. These islands are all over- 
growne with woods, as oak, walnutt, pine, spruse trees, 
hasell nutts, sarsaparilla, and hurts in abundaunce, 
only they found no saxafras at all in the country." 
Sassafras bark and root were staple in the English 
market, and eagerly sought out, and this was the 
object of Gilbert's excursion. 

One notes the laying out of the ship-yard and the 
laying of the keel of a thirty-ton vessel as the begin- 
ning of an industry for which the country hereabout 
has since been famous. It was the earliest attempt 
at ship-building on these American shores, and as 
such is notable. Popham must have come prepared 
with saws and an abundant outfit of carpentering 
tools to have undertaken the building of a ship, for 
the plankings must have been sawed although the 
frame may have been hewn. Digby, of London was 
the chief ship-wright, and what a busy sound of 
putting things together there must have been! for by 
the middle of December the fort was built and properly 
entrenched, and around its walls were mounted 
twelve cannon, armament enough if rightly served to 
have demolished a small squadron. Its lines must 
have been extensive, for within was a church, fifty 
houses and a storehouse ample to hold all their stores 
present and to come. Of wood, there must have 
been a sufficiency with the leavings of the carpenters 
and the tree-tops from which they culled their dressed 
lumber. They named the pinnace the Virginia, and 
she was to take the place of the Maiy and John which 
had been despatched home with the news of the 






YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 129 

successful termination of the voyage. The Mary and 
John also carried letters "to the Lord Chief Justice, 
ymportuinge a supply for the most necessary wants 
to the subsisting of a colony, to be sent unto them 
betymes the next yeare." It would seem that there 
was some apprehension of a possible shortage in the 
larder. It may have been that these men were 
gourmands and of a distant kin to the adventurers of 
old Ulysses. 

The date of George Popham's letter to King James 
fixes very nearly the date of the departure of the 
Mary and John on the homeward voyage. It was 
about the time of the completion of the Virginia, and 
possibly the ship had been detained until the fort and 
the dwellings which were to afford a winter shelter 
were up and ready for occupancy. It may be said 
to be the first letter written from these shores. The 
original is in the Latin Vulgate, and is more interest- 
ing in the translation than otherwise. It is especially 
significant in its betrayal of the ignorance and cred- 
ulity of the times in regard to common things, and 
which found a fertile soil in the mind of the cultured 
Popham, and more particularly as regarded the 
physical and geographical disposition of the country 
to the southward of the Sagadahoc. Outside of the 
MSS. of Rosier, and of Strachey, it is the only con- 
temporary record of its kind extant. Its extrava- 
gance of style, its high color, impressionism, its 
exaggerations, along with its torrid adulations, give 
to it a unique character, and as well, a delicious 
flavor of semi-antiquity. 



130 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

"To the most heigh and mightie my gratious 
Soveraigne Lord James of Great Brittain, France and 
Ireland Virginia and Moasson, Kinge." (Indorsed.) 

"13 December, 1607. 

"At the feet of his Most Serene King humbly 
prostrates himself George Popham, President of the 
Second Colony of Virginia. If it may please the 
patience of your divine Majesty — to receive a few 
things from your most observant and devoted, though 
unworthy, servant I trust it will derogate nothing 
from the lustre of your Highness, since they seem to 
redound to the glory of God, the greatness of your 
Majesty, and the utility of Great Brittain, I have 
thought it therefore very just that it should be made 
known to your Majesty, that among the Virginians 
and Moassons there is none in the world more admired 
than King James, Sovereign Lord of Great Brittain, 
on account of his admirable justice and incredible 
constancy, which gives no small pleasure to the 
natives of these regions, who say moreover that there 
is no God to be truly worshipped but the God of King 
James, under whose rule and reign they would gladly 
fight. Tahanida, one of the natives who was in Great 
Brittain has here proclaimed to them your praises and 
virtues. What and how much I may avail in tran- 
sacting these affairs and in confirming their minds, 
let those judge who are well versed in these matters 
at home, while I, wittingly avow, that all my 
endeavors are as nothing when considered in com- 
parison with my duty toward my Prince. My well 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 131 

considered opinion is, that in these regions the glory 
of God may be easily evidenced, the empire of your 
Majesty enlarged, and the welfare of Great Brittain 
speedily augmented. So far as relates to Commerce 
there are in these parts, shagbarks, nutmegs and 
cinnamon, besides pine wood, and Brazilian cochineal 
and ambergris, with many other products of great 
value, and these in the greatest abundance. 

"Besides, they positively assure me, that there is a 
sea in the opposite or Western part of this Province, 
distant not more than seven days journey from our 
fort of St. George in Sagadahoc, — a sea large, wide 
and deep, the boundaries of which they are wholly 
ignorant of. This cannot be any other than the 
Southern ocean, reaching to the regions of China, 
which, unquestionably, cannot be far from these 
regions. If, therefore, it may please you to keep 
open your divine eyes on this matter of my report, 
I doubt not but your Majesty will perform a work most 
pleasing to God, most honorable to your greatness, 
and most conducive to the weal of your kingdom, 
which with ardent prayers I most vehemently desire. 
And may God Almighty grant that the majesty of my 
Sovereign Lord King James may remain glorious for 
ages to come. 

"At the Fort of St. George, in Sagadahoc of 
Virginia, 13 December, 1607. 

"In all things your Majesty's Devoted Servant, 

"George Popham." 



132 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Thus reads this fulsome epistle to the pedantic 
James I., and what roseate anticipations filled the 
minds of these adventurers, from Popham down to 
the lowest in the rank of the one hundred and twenty 
planters! But all were nipped in the bud by the 
"frozen winter", and although the spring came in, 
bearing abundant and beautiful promise, the courage 
and the aspirations of Gilbert, upon whom had fallen 
the sad mantle of Popham, were winter-killed. The 
high purposes of the preceding year were fallen flat. 
There is one thing, however, to be gleaned from this 
letter which is of an affirmative character. It is 
evident that here on the Kennebec was the habitat of 
the Nahanada, the savage who was kidnapped by 
Waymouth in 1605. It is proof positive that Way- 
mouth was on the Kennebec, notwithstanding 
Captain Williams' astute conclusions to the con- 
trary. 

It is not singular, with all these erratic notions, 
this unacquaintance with climatic conditions, and the 
productions, likewise, of this particular parallel of the 
temperate zone, that the realism should be so emphat- 
ically, so abruptly brought home to their senses; 
nor is it at all strange that such rank disappointment 
should follow the felicitous fables of Hakluyt with 
which they were doubtless well acquainted. But 
we will not anticipate their story. 

How the fort-enclosed village was arranged or what 
were the habitations as to style, size and accomodation 
whether they were substantially built, or were mere 
log shelters, we have no means of knowing. There 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 133 

were one hundred and twenty laborers of whom some 
were at work under Digby, on the pinnace. Others 
were at work on the fort, and the remainder put up 
the houses. Fifty houses, a church, a storehouse, 
and a fort built in four months with the tools of the 
times, could not call for a very elaborate domicile. 
Each must have had its huge fireplace up whose 




SITE OF OLD FORT AT ANCIENT AUGUSTA 

chimneys roared the great fires that kept them warm 
through that " frozen" winter. I imagine the winter 
might not have been so much different from any 
ordinary New England winter, except that these 
people were not accustomed to so lengthy a period of 
extremely cold weather. They were unable to get 
about outside the fort by reason of the deep snows, 
and probably there was not a pair of snow-shoes in 



134 YE ROMANCE OF OLD** PEMAQUID 

the whole company; and had there been it is doubt- 
ful if a man of them could have navigated a pair 
twice his length without a headlong tumble into the 
snow. It may have been that the cold crept in 
through the chinks in their cabin walls faster than 
they could soften its asperities by their heaped-up 
fireplaces. It may have been that they had made no 
provision for the extra foot and coat wear required 
in such arctic experiences. No doubt their inexperi- 
ence exposed them to the hardships common to the 
endurance of things not to be thwarted or overcome, 
and the wild winter storms that swooped down upon 
them from the north, or across the Penobscot Bay 
had their terrors, with the folds of their flying clouds 
shaken loose to pile the deeps of snow higher and 
higher with every gray day. They had the Mary 
and John in mind ; not one I trow, but wished he had 
gone to bonnie England with Captain Davis. It was 
a long winter and a hard one, but the days went as 
winter days go, with a short lapse from dawn to 
sunset, and a long sleep after an evening of blinking 
by the open fire, a story, a simmering mug, a pipe out 
of whose curling smokes were shaped the swift dis- 
solving views of places and people they had known 
best, and associations they had cherished as most 
necessary to their happiness, dream pictures, — and 
who has not conjured them out of the past to rim 
the future with their silver halo! 

The strangeness of their surroundings and their 
isolation from their own kind added to the sense of 
loneliness which must have been ever present. It 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 135 

was a time of enforced idleness, and by reason of 
which "noe boat could stir upon any busines." 
The trade with the savages had been carried on to 
some extent, but the aborigine was suspicious, and 
looked upon these men who carried weapons that 
flashed and thundered, who possessed metal axes and 
who built houses of framed timbers, and who sailed 
in ships that had deep holes in their bodies, and tall 
sticks in their middles, and that had wings like a 
huge bird. The Indian was not inclined to be 
friendly, or to be much influenced by Nahanada and 
Skidwarroes. It is not to be supposed that any con- 
siderable trade in furs was engaged in after the snows 
had set in to make travel difficult, as the aborigine 
kept to his village through the winter as a bear would 
keep to his hibernacle. Strachey is silent as to the 
amusements indulged in by these men, who must, 
from time to time, wearied each of the other as the 
longing came for a glimpse of a rosy-cheeked English 
lass, or a wife, and the noisy romp of the children, 
the feel of the old chair in the familiar tavern, and 
the old smells of the home kitchen. The cards are 
shuffled and dealt, but it is hardly the old game they 
knew at the Red Lion. With the environment went 
a good half of the zest, and so something was ever 
lacking. 

As one saunters over the breezy undulations of 
Popham Point in these days, one steps lightly as if 
under one's feet were the resting-places of a long- 
buried dead, and whose olden graves bear no insignia 
where the committing of this sacred charge to earth 



136 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

was had. There are graves somewhere here, but 
where? Never were better ground 

"Where in long summer afternoons 
The sunshine, softened by the haze, 
Comes streaming down as through a screen, 
Where, over fields and pastures green," 

the white clouds drop purple shadows, that, as they 
fly, drift out to sea, or 

"sink and soar 
Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore." 

But no trace of George Popham's grave has ever been 
distinguished, for it was here, at Fort St. George, on 
the granite dome of Sabino, that he died on the fifth 
day of February, 1608, and it was somewhere among 
these shifting sands he found the portal to a fairer 
country. 

One thinks of the autumn days of 1607 through 
which were woven the medley of busy sounds, when 
all the face of Nature was aflame, when, as these 
workmen lifted their shoulders for a moment's rest 
to look across the Sagadahoc, Pemaquid way, they 
caught the vision of an autumn landscape, painted 

"With varied tints, all fused in one 
Great mass of color, like a maze 
Of flowers, illumined by the sun." 

How those days must have sped, and how welcome 
was the night with its interval of sopition, the deep 
forgetful slumbers of a weary body, fraught with 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 137 

dreams and old memories of realities, but now intan- 
gible, that come 

"As leaves that in the autumn fall, 
Spotted and veined with various hues, 
Are swept along the avenues, 
And lie in heaps by hedge and wall," 

each one the phantom of a living thought; and over 




.— - --*^ ^^a^^ 



POPHAM. BEACH 



all the luminous harvest moon, but which had small 
meaning to these Argonauts; the while, 

"Each saffron dawn and sunset red," 

brought them nearer to the country of the noiseless- 
falling snow. 



138 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

There are hollows in the sands where the winds 
have shifted the dunes, and here and there a green 
spot where a tuft of wiry sand-grass throws its spires 
to the wind to mark a hillock ; but none of these speak 
of the mystery of death other than the glamour of the 
white patches of desolateness that one finds always 
among the sand-heaps by the sea-shore, and that 
bespeak only too emphatically of Nature's impoverish- 
ment among this shifting detritus of rock. The sea 
pounds on the sands a little way off, and the off-shore 
wind softens the clamor of many waters. Ships ride 
in the offing, and the shallops of the fishers scud up 
and down the bay. There is no suggestion here of an 
olden day when these empty places were choked with 
dense woods; but one knows here was once a ship- 
yard where the stout ribs of the Virginia were trun- 
nelled together, and where was once the laying away 
of dust to dust, where wan disappointment supplanted 
the fond ambition of Gorges. The shuttles begin to 
fly, and the looms in the brain take up the weaving of 
strange webs not the less wonderful than those tapes- 
tries of the faithful Penelope. 

"As one who walking in the twilight gloom, 
Hears round about him voices as it darkens, 
And seeing not the forms from which they come, 
Pauses from time to time, and turns and hearkens; 
So walking here, — " 

I queried who it might have been that whispered 
in my ear, light as the breath of air, but 

"There was no footprint in the grass, 
And none had seen the stranger pass." 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 139 

There were only 

"The sob and ripple of the seas, 
The flapping of an idle sail; ' 

the faint halloo of two sailors leaning over the rail of a 
taut-rigged schooner that had just shifted her tack 
and was showing her stern just above a wake of white 
foam. I mind me of One who, stooping, wrote with 
his finger in the sand, and when He looked He was 
alone, but for a solitary figure. I have not even 
that, and like a child I stretch myself upon the white 
waste, and, with the aimlessness of a child, I begin to 
draw rude figures with a twig, and as I trace here and 
there a line, 

"around me all the sunny capes 
Seemed peopled with the shapes/' 

of those whose garb was unfamiliar, and as I looked 
with keener scrutiny I knew them for the Argonauts 
of 1607. And then I drew the lines of the old fort 
with my little twig and as I wrought the tiny trenches 
filled and widened out, and they grew like the Dragon 
teeth of Cadmus, as I watched. In a moment they 
were up so I could see the square ports and staring 
black mouths of the cannon, and I counted the toy 
houses that grew into the habitations of men; and 
there were fifty of them. There was a church and a 
storehouse, and sounds of hammers and axes and the 
strident shouts of the carpenters filled the air. Men 
were moving here and there, mouthing rude jokes, 
for the last strokes were being given to the pinnace, 



140 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

and she had been duly christened with a copious 
libation. I remember it well. It was an Indian 
summer day, 

"On the broad and drowsy land below, 
On shadowy forests filled with game, 
And the blue river winding slow," 

the mystery of the fleeting season was being inter- 
preted. At once these soft airs are blown; the sounds 
about the old fort are hushed. The silent flakes begin 
to sift downward, and the world is white. The winds 
blow bleak, and instead of the yellow sands and the 
living green of Sabino's verdurous woods, is the pallor 
of winter, stark, white winter. The blue of the sky is 
more intense, but the waters of the encircling sea, from 
emerald are dyed black beyond this marge of trackless, 
hooded white. 

But, no! - There are prints of snow-shoes over 
toward the fort-gate, and I follow their trend over 
the intervening drifts. It is no dream after all, for 
here are the substantial walls of a wooden fort. I 
can see it is of a triangular shape, and it is the same 
built by George Popham and of which Strachey 
wrote. I sound an alarm on the stout gates. They 
part cumberously, and I go in. I count the chim- 
neys, 

" With smoke uprising, gyre on gyre," 

and how noiselessly they climb the frozen steeps of 
the winter air! And so it is, all the annihilate vestiges 
of this ancient settlement are rehabilitated. For all 
that, one touches these wooden walls as one would a 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 141 

film of ash, fearful that they may crumble at a breath ; 
but no, I hear the creak of the clumsy hinge as the 
gate is closed to, and the inner fort is vibrant with 
the speech of the Anglo-Saxon, and men go hither 
and yon, from door to door, as they may, cowering 
and shrinking from the wind that bites and stings 
and fills their coats with subtle shafts of frost. I like 
these ruddy English faces, were they not so sober 
with the recent burial of Popham, and the fits of 
homesickness that come with the waking hours and 






££;..-< 



SABINO HILL, FORT POPHAM 



last until the back-log is left to smoulder into the 
next dawn. One is made doubly welcome, but I am 
scanning these low roofs and the huge stubs of chim- 
neys that top the north gable of their sturdy piles of 
logs. They were rude structures, but were made to 
stand, and they were made to live in, comfortably. 
If their interiors showed the rough-hewn walls, they 
kept out the snow and the wind, and the huge fire- 
places sent out great waves of living heat that not 
only illumined the dark of the night, but made the 
waking and the sleeping hours alike comfortable. I 



142 Y E ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

noted that the church was a barn-like affair, and that 
the house where Popham had lived was of a somewhat 
more pretentious, character, and that it was com- 
prised of two low stories piled one above the other. 
Popham and Gilbert had used it in common with the 
Chaplain. It was a gentlemanly trio, and their com- 
pany was needful to the passing of the slow-footed 
hours of waiting until spring, and then there was 
beyond the bonds of companionship, the guarantee of 
safety. I was not curious to enter this house, but 
I passed it and kept on to where Digby lived; but 
I noted in passing that there was a low, wide-jambed 
fireplace in which was a roaring fire from the ruddy 
light it threw upon the diminutive glazing of the two 
somewhat fairly sized windows that let into what 
seemed to be the living room. Over the mantel I saw 
a pair of swords crossed and an old-fashioned mus- 
ketoon which had been the property of Popham. I 
noted some shelves beside the mantel, and on them 
were carelessly piled some books, but whether they 
belonged to the minister, or whether they were some 
of the big, black-lettered books affected by the writers 
of those days I did not ascertain, nor do I know to 
this day. I saw the shadows, en silhouette, of Gil- 
bert and Seymour on the wall, as I supposed, but of 
that I am not certain. But as I went on, a gruff 
voice exclaimed, — • "That's Digby's, — that house, 
there! " I looked about, but I could see no one, nor 
was I aware that anyone had kept me company. I 
thought to myself it was a singular country where one 
saw and heard so much for which they could not 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 143 

account; but I know now that I was in the Land 
of Romance, where the things I saw were really truths 
once on a time, but that time had been so far left 
behind that whatever any one said about the matter 
beyond the ancient annals of Strachey was as unreal 
as anything could be that had never taken place. 
This story of the Popham settlement has been written 
more than once, but throw Strachey ashore, and you 
have thrown over your compass, jack-staff and 
binnacle-lamp, and as well unshipped your rudder, 
when like the craft of the Three Wise Men of Gotham, 
your vessel has become a veritable tub. 

But I notice that Digby's bobbin hangs loose on 
the outside of the door to dangle in the wind which 
seems to have gained some impetus with the going 
down of the sun, and as I stumble against the stout 
and somewhat high-silled threshold, I hear some one 
saying "Pull the bobbin, and the latch will come up! " 

I pulled the bobbin, and 

"The door swung wide, 

With creak and din; 
A blast of cold night air 

Came in" 

after me, but the sturdy door, clouble-planked, and 
studded with nails, closed as if pushed to by unseen 
hands, and the thick wedge-like latch of wood drop- 
ped into a like wooden slot. I expected to find a 
roaring crackling fire piled high with the limbs of 
the oaks from which the rugged ribs of the Virginia 
had been hewn. I supposed Digby to be something 
of a man of sentiment, and I had an idea that he 



144 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

dreamed somewhat as he smoked, for these English 
folk had been favored by the Indians who had 
brought them tobacco from time to time as the fall 
days went, and I got the flavor of the burning weed 
which seemed to be somewhat milder than that to 
which I was accustomed; but this fire was a revela- 
tion. As it burned I heard all the canticles of the 
wildwood singers, and I saw all strange things these 
trees had looked down upon since they burst their 




FORT POPHAM AND COX'S HEAD 



follicles, of woodland life and tragedy, of savage, 
beast, and bird; of snows, and rains, and swirling 
tempests; the magic of the Dryads was revealed. 

The loose sash rattled window- ward; 

The gable creaked ; the ehimney blew 
Its noisy syrinx; the rough seas lashed 

The shore below; and hissing, flew 
The salt spray o'er the low fort wall 

To smite with frozen hail the thatch, 
While gusty fingers fumbled at 

The bobbin-string to lift the latch. 

It seemed a night when uncanny things were 
abroad, or when a look to seaward might compass 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 145 

the vision of the Chimneys Three, the Spectre Ship 
of the Carmilhan, and clinging to its phantom shrouds, 

the dread 

" Klabotorman 
The Kobold of the sea; a sprite 
Invisible to mortal sight," 

but for the rollicking blaze of the huge fire whose 
loud music filled the rucle interior of the ship- 
wright's winter hibernacle, for hibernacle it was, to 
be deserted with the first reddening of the maples. 

I noticed a cumbersome settle built into the rough 
masonry of the jamb, and the firelight fell cheerfully 
over it. It was just where I could look at the ship- 
wright for a little, and upon whose tawny English 
face with its bush of tawny beard, the firelight 
shone full. Fitted comfortably into my niche in the 
rude surroundings, I made a survey after a not 
over-curious fashion from the rough-hewn slabs of 
the cabin-floor to the virgin roof-tree, as yet un- 
stained by vagrant smokes, and undraped by the 
tapestries of the guild of the Tegenaria. 

It was not so much different from what I had 
pictured it as I sojourned for a little with Strachey 
and the Popham adventurers, reading between the 
lines of that quaint story; but as I read him it was 
always with a sense of loss, that he had so much to 
say of those up-river and along-the-coast junket- 
ings, and the grapes, the hurts and the chiballs, 
as if one cared at all about them, except that the wild 
musk of those grapes lingers in the memory to whet 
a boy's palate. It seemed to me he should have 



146 YE ROMANCE OF OLD*? PEMAQUID 

written something of the indoor living of these first 
English comers, and given one a glimpse of the 
interior of one of those early cabins, " which would 
have been more interesting than all the pow-wows 
enumerated by him in his relations of Sebanoa and 
the Bassaba of the Penobscot. Lo is with us even 
to this day, and he is not a far remove from his stal- 
wart ancestor embalmed by Pope, 

"Whose untutored mind sees God in the clouds 
And hears him in the wind ; whose soul 
Proud Science never taught to stray 

into the fields of astronomy, but who, at a pinch, could 
raise scalps or maize, as war, or peace dictated. 

It was a ruddy flame that lighted those rude walls, 
and one could discover its veriest corners; and as I 
remember it it spanned perhaps fifteen feet in width 
and was twice that long. The low wide throat of 
the chimney stretched the gable across, almost, and 
the chimney itself was built of the wreckage of the 
Sabino headlands, set in yellow clay from an adjacent 
meadow. It was huge, and built like the deacon's 
one-horse chaise, and extended into the room some- 
what, throwing out at its foot a wide hearth of cobble- 
stone worn round by the sea, a mosaic of divers 
color, set in white sand, as if this builder of ships 
found some mute solace in the companionship of 
these relics of the resonant shore. 

I knew that he had a love for old things, and had 
brought some of them along with him; for, here 
stood a pair of solid andirons in honest black metal 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 147 

that smacked of Holland as assuredly as the mug 
of schnapps at mine host's elbow. They were a 
yard high, and were topped with dragon's-heads 
whose yawning mouths seemed ever on the verge 
of crying out with Sleepy-head, 

''Let's go to bed!" 

These huge fire-logs have a strange fascination, as 
if they were the magicians of the spell under which 
I lay. They make a singular ado as they spend 
themselves in devouring flame; for, at times they 
bark like a fox to spin a jet of bluish fire a half-yard 
into the expanse of hearth as the imprisoned gases 
find sudden vent through the hot rind of the fore- 
stick. They hiss and sputter like an angry lynx at 
their steaming ends ; and roar, like the surfs of Seguin, 
when the chimney was wrought into a Pandaean pipe 

"on which all the winds that blew, 
Made mournful music the whole winter through." 

And yet, for all this clamor, the dragons stood with 
mouth agape transfixed with spodomantic spell. 

Not far from this seething whirlpool of riotous 
flame, and perhaps near the center of the cabin, stood 
a table of rough deal. I noticed it was square and of 
ample dimensions, and about it were some three- 
legged stools as if to offer some hint of pregnant 
hospitality. On its bare top was a stone jug the 
odor of which filled the interior, to suggest the musk 
of those wild grapes Gilbert found up-river when the 
leaves had begun to take on the same purpling mask 



148 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

of color. Beside this was a diminutive Delft jar 
that from the litter about it I conjectured might con- 
tain some of Sebanoa's tobacco. There was an 
amber-colored fine splinter of pitch-pine beside it 
which was used as a match at need, when the pipe was 
to be lighted; and drawn to the table, was the only 
chair the room boasted, and which was occupied by 
Digby, himself. It had a newish look, as if recently 
constructed, and it much resembled some of the May- 
flower chairs that are exhibited as once having up- 




FOX ISLAND 



held the dignity of the Plymouth Colony in its 
earlier deliberations when Bradford was Governor, 
and Myles Standish Master at Arms. 

Behind Digby was a bunk built solidly into the 
wooden wall, and which was piled with divers bedding, 
such as one might find in any hermitage where the 
hand of woman never came. Against one jamb was 
a pile of wood which seemed to be somewhat coarsely 
fitted, as it suggested the wood-chopper rather than 
the handiwork of the one-legged man, who, with his 
wood-saw and axe, made the rounds of the neighbor- 
hood in days which already seem far away to me, — 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 149 

let alone this ship-builder's fire-logs of three centuries 
ago. At the farther end of the cabin was a tier of 
fuel that was piled high up into the gable, and I saw 
a cumbersome carpenter's chest and the glittering 
blade of an adz stretched its length upon the shut 
cover. 

Over the fire was a long low mantel, a wide slab of 
pine, and at one corner hung a clumsy bellows with a 
black nose that had blown many a heap of ruddy 
coals into a lively blaze; and above, was a musketoon 
suspended upon its wooden pegs, and a white horn 
that would hold a quart of powder, a leathern bag 
for bullets. On the mantel was the tinder-box. A 
few plates of Delft, a pewter trencher, and a skillet 
kept it suggestive company, while, on the soot- 
embossed crane that spanned the chimney-back hung 
a swivelled tea-kettle from whose dusky nozzle a 
ribbon of steam spun away like a thread of mist 
rising from some black bog when the shower had 
gone by. I noted, as well, in the shadow of the bellows 
a long-handled, flat-bladed shovel like what, in olden 
times, was used to pull the coals from the old-fashioned 
brick ovens, and beside it were the stout iron tongs 
that over-topped the dragon's heads by a hand's span. 

It was a swift survey, a survey of a single glance, 
and it is as fresh in my mind, now that I am writing 
of it, as is the recollection of that day, when from a 
sand-heap I had built a fort, fifty dwelling-houses, a 
storehouse and a church, a whole town, in fact, and 
had perched it upon the crest of Sabino Hill with a 
certain admixture of an imagination let out for a 



150 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

pasture run, a few grains of enchanted sand, a heap 
of wooded rock and a smattering of Strachey in mind, 
stirred together with a slender pine twig, on the 
breezy dunes of Popham Point. 

"A wizard is he, 
And Lord of the wind and the sea; 
And whichever way he sails, 
He has ever favoring gales, 
By his craft in sorcery." 

It was not I, but the wizard, who wrought the 
subtle spell, the Spirit of the Sea. 

What struck me as singular, I had had no greeting 
from the figure whose elbow was in such close com- 
panionship with the stone jug I have mentioned. 
Silent as he was, I could but note the garb, now 
obsolete, of the ship-wright of the Virginia. His 
stout calves were encased in shapely, thonged buskins, 

"The hunted red-deer's undressed hide/' 

his breeches were of pliant leather, soiled to seal 
color by use; his jerkin was of good English buff, as 
Shakespeare says, 

"a most sweet robe of durance," 

bound to his hips by a stout juchten belt with a 
broad silver buckle. Over the wide neck-band of his 
jerkin flowed a patriarchal beard that half covered 
his ruddy face with its yellow bush and above which, 
deep-set in his Viking-head, glowed a pair of mellow 
orbs that brightened as one looked, or paled with the 
embers on the hearth at his feet. I was minded of 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 151 

the "Skeleton in Armor" by this untoward silence, 
and I began to feel something of misgiving, as if my 
evening call might be construed as an intrusion, but 
bethought myself of the insular characteristics of the 
English people, and Yankee-like, with the boisterous- 
ness of an April day and its balmy southern winds, I 
remarked, blandly, — 




% 

Trurn 



"A fine evening, sir, — a fine old winter we are 
having, Mr. Digby!" 

A ragged gust of wind clambered up the side of 
Sabino Hill, leapt the fort-wall and smote against the 
gable that moment. The wind shrieked down the 
chimney, as if to belie my remark; but I thought the 
weather as innocuous a subject as could be chosen, 



152 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

and it being a matter of common parlance between 
people who happen to be thrown together inadver- 
tently, to talk of impersonal things, I again essayed 
to break the silence which was becoming slightly 
embarrassing. 

"Our friend Strachey says, It was a 'pretty 
Pynnace' you built for Popham, Mr. Digby, — " 

And yet the ship-wright was silent. 

"A quiet smile played round his lips, 
As the eddies and dimples of the tide 
Play round the bows of ships, 
That steadily at anchor ride," 

but with the same inscrutable vacuity of speech, yet 
I was emboldened by that smile to add quickly, and 
with something of abnegation in my air, — "I hope 
I am not intruding, sir!" 

"Then from those cavernous eyes 
Pale flashes seemed to rise, 
As when the northern skies 
Gleam in December," 

and instantly it was as if the fire on the hearth had 
never been. I felt the cool winds blowing on my 
face, and as I looked over toward Pemaquid, I saw 
the schooner had made another tack. Then I knew 
I had been drowsing in the sun. I looked about for 
the fort with its upright palisades and the black- 
mouthed guns that I had seen; but all had faded away 
into the mists in the offing. Only the sheer walls of 
the granite hill were in sight. It was a spatter of wet 
from a passing cloud that had broken my dream, and 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 153 

it was with unfeigned regret at the interruption that 
I watched its bellying folds settling over the hull-like 
stone-heap of old Monhegan. 

With the coming of the spring days, Captain Davis 
sailed into the mouth of the Sagadahoc, his "shipp 
laden full of vitualls, armes, instruments and tooles" 
for the further propagation of the Popham Colony. 
He found "Mr. George Popham, the president, and 
some other dead, yet he found all things in good 
forwardness, and many kinds of furs obteyned from 
the Indians by way of trade, a good store of sars- 
aparilla gathered, and the new pynnace all finished." 
With all the good things brought, was the blighting 
news that Admiral Gilbert's brother "was newly 
dead, and a faire portion of land fallen to his share, 
which required his repaiar home." 

Gilbert decided to return home at once. It was 
an unfortunate condition of affairs, as with the de- 
parture of Gilbert the colony would be without a 
leader, and after some discussion "they all ymbarqued 
in this new arrived shipp, and in the pynnace, the 
Virginia, and sett saile for England." Strachey 
closes his account, — "And this was the end of 
that northerne colony uppon the river Sachedahoc." 

One of the singular things about this relation is 
the absence of any allusion to the Gift of God, Pop- 
ham's ship, after the arrival in the fall of 1607 at the 
mouth of the Sagadahoc. It has been contended 
by some writers that forty-five of the Popham 
adherents remained at Fort St. George, and that 
the Gift of God was kept at her winter moorings. 



154 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Out of this, one has the tradition that between such 
as remained and the neighboring Indians a quarrel 
ensued; and that the settlers were driven from the 
fort; and that others were killed. It is a sailor's 
yarn, and of rather loose twist, as it could not have 
taken place before the leaving of the colonists. 

But here is something alleged to have been taken 
from the archives of the French Government. In 
February of 1612 the Jesuit Biard was at Sagada- 
hoc. He made some observations of the place, and 
among other things gleaned a tradition from the 
savages of the Armouchiquois tribe that "the Eng- 
lish had at first a good man and his people treated 
the natives well;" but the Indians were jealous of the 
English occupancy, and alleged that by magic arts the 
English had caused the death of Popham, and that the 
settlers rewarded the kindness of the savages illy. 
One day when the English had gone into the bay to 
fish, the savages made an assault upon those left at 
the fort, and succeeded in killing eleven of the Eng- 
lish. The survivors, intimidated by these savage 
reprisals, began anew a colony at Pemaquid. All 
this is of a piece with the hazy fabric that has been 
woven, from time to time, by the romancer about 
these parts. 

It is a safe conclusion that with the sailing of 
Captain Davis and the pinnace, that, as Strachey 
says, "this was the end," and by reason of which, 
Fort St. George was, in the spring of 1608, left to 
silence and decay; and after which, stripped of its 
human associations, only 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 155 

"The sunsets flushed its western windows red; 
The snow was on its roofs, the wind, the rain; 
Its woodlands were in leaf, and bare again; 
Moons waxed and waned, the lilac bloomed and died; 
In the broad river, ebbed and flowed the tide; 
Ships went to sea, and ships came home from sea, 
And the slow years sailed by and ceased to be," 

and Fort St. George as well; for, where was once the 

handiwork of busy, hopeful men, are now but a huge 

verdurous rib of rock and dunes of shifting sand, 

over which, as the day goes, run the purpling shadows 

of Sabino's brooding headland, 

" brown 
with the rust of centuries." 

One even now finds, here or there, among these 
closely scrutinized, long-culled sands a relic of the 
olden days when Sabino was the scene of savage 
activity, the Woolwich of long gone centuries, the 
fragment of a stone axe, a broken arrow-head, may- 
hap a perfect specimen of a savage handiwork, and 
as one fingers it, one plays conjuror with one's self, 
to slip the elusive spell, only to conclude with M. 
Gautier, that 

"All passes. Art alone 

Remaining, stays to us. 
The bust outlives the throne; 

The coin, Tiberius." 




^c 



PEMAQUID 




PEMAQUID 

HE English colonist was ever a 
lover of the sea, perhaps not so 
much because it was a highway 
whose only toll-keeper was the 
errant wind, or that it was exempt 
from manor rights and ever 
breathed that sweet spirit of 
untramelled liberty in Nature, so 
much coveted by humanity, as 
that it owned to a subtle yet 
sustaining power in its suggestions 
of life and companionship. Whether he planted his 
roof -tree beside the tide-waters of the James, upon 
the bold headland of Sabino, along the sandy barrens 
of Cape Cod, or within the seductive landscapes 
of the Piscataqua, it was ever where the winds 
owned to the savor of salt. 

One delights in the swing of the tides where the 
ships rock, as in cradles, nor are its wide outlooks 
less alluring; and one never tires of the mighty force 
that makes no moan of weariness. From the roar 
of the surging breakers on the outer rocks and reefs, 

159 




160 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

or the battering of old ocean, ever pounding the 
bastions of granite that frown with deeply wrinkled 
visage along the Maine Coast from Neddock to 
Devil's Head, to the monody of the surf that caress- 
ingly laps the sands of Sagadahoc Beach, it is all a 
song, the song of the centuries. When the tempests 
swoop down upon it, awaking the diapason of the 
storm, it is the inspiration of the Mighty Composer 
whose music of the spheres has ever been the unin- 
terpretable mystery of the ages. One is fascinated 
by the deep, sustaining color of the sea, the reflex of 
the great dome of the sky that paints its horizons 
with the golden halo of the dawn, or the Tyrian 
purple of twilight. 

The salty flavor of its breath is exhilarating, and 
one's lungs titillate with the inbreathing of its 
ozone. Its ships with their bellying sails, not whiter 
than the snowy foam that leaps with the freshening 
wind from off the crested waters, make pictures that 
linger long in the heart, and solace many a weary 
hour; and one recalls with Tennyson the charm of 

"A painted ship upon a painted ocean," 

when the long rolling swell, a limitless plane of un- 
dulating olive-stained glass, the aftermath of the 
storm, sweeps shoreward, to break in soft cadence 
along the sloping beach, while gulls on tireless wing, 
dip and swing, and like silver shuttles cleaving the 
invisible air, weave the loose fabrics of which summer 
dreams are made. The sea is a sorcerer, and as a 
tippler loves his dram, so one enjoys the sting of its 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 161 

brine. Its odors are like the bouquet of the ruddy 
Johannisberger, the date of whose vintage is attested 
by a cellarer whose occupation betimes is the weav- 
ing cobwebs. It was in the midst of the sea that 
Islands of the Bimini were planted, where flowed the 
Fountain of Eternal Youth, and beyond which were 
the fabled treasures of Cathay. Though the Bimini 
have never been seen by mortal eye, yet in these 
tireless tides that ebb and flow with the pulsations 
of the moon is the hidden mystery, the necromancy 
of Nature. 

As one, who journeys to some distant shrine, 

Forsakes the beaten road by pilgrims thronged, 
Makes the odorous fields his romancer, 

As if to him their spangled meads belonged, 
Their riant blossoming for him, alone; 

So I, the highway's foot-worn grits, upblown, 
Leave to the plodding, soulless hind, and make 

Earth's verdure and the sea's salt breath my own. 

After a similar fashion of intent, as I begin my 
pilgrimage to olden Pemaquid, I am inclined to take 
to the open, and thereby leave the dust-powdered 
hedgerows of doubtful annals to the enthusiastic 
and clamorous Teufelsdrockh whose lucubrations 
impair one's confidence in his kind, to say nothing 
of the strain upon what Carlyle calls "that tough 
faculty of reading," which, like the delicate scales 
of the goldsmith, tips at the Troy pound, as at the 
infinitesimal blank, so rich, or so coarsely alloyed, 
are the mintings of men's brains. 

It is with such distaste of ruts and wheel-tracks that 
the story of olden Pemaquid is essayed, and upon 



162 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

which and about which, so much has been written 
by one annalist and another. But for its aboriginal 
wildness, the picturesqueness of its virgin landscape, 
it would seem to be prolific of meagre results until 
the closing years of the second decade of the seven- 
teenth century, when there seems to be a firmer 
and a more tensile quality to the yarn that has gone 
into the knitting of its pioneer history. The forty- 
five men of the original settlement at Fort St. George 
who are alleged to have declined to join in the exodus 
of 1608, and who, some annalists declare, began 
immediately thereafter a settlement at Pemaquid, 
from a numerical point of view, suggest "The Forty- 
five" of Dumas, and it is not impossible that this 
fragment of Pemaquid's early history may have found 
some lodgement in the French romancer's brain. The 
title of the French novel is suggestive of the romance 
that still lingers about the forty-five who are said to 
have located at Pemaquid, notwithstanding the 
definite statement of Strachey as to the utter aban- 
donment of the Popham location in 1608. 

I apprehend that in the writing of history, the 
recording of a bare fact is not sufficient. As I have 
before somewhere remarked, Emerson says, — "His- 
tory is biography." If this be true, and it seems 
definitively correct, then the times, the dress, and 
manners of a people are important, as are the stage 
settings of a play. One realizes the need of grace- 
lines in history, as in the pen drawings of the artist 
who localizes his incidents with, here and there in the 
text, an old house, or other detail of the picturesque. 



Y^ ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 163 

Straight lines are encyclopaedic, or otherwise mean- 
ingless. One sees, as one passes along a strange 
highway the dwellings of men. Here is one. It sets 
on the verge of the road. Its clapboards are glisten- 
ing white, and the house painter has not long since 




FROM AN EARLY CHART 



left it. Its windows are blindless, — they never 
had any. Not a flicker of shade falls upon its slop- 
ing roofs. Not a shrub blooms beside its trig door- 
step. One looks at the door with a curious sympathy, 
to discover there is not even the old-fashioned door- 
knocker, and one feels of one's knuckles before 



164 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

essaying to alarm the house. There is a poignant 
sense of lack without, which one feels has even crossed 
over the inner threshold ; and one paints the impover- 
ishment of Nature in the soul that cherishes its 
hearthstone. But one does not stop to confirm these 
impressions, but drives on to what seems to be a 
neighboring home whose red roofs and ruddy chim- 
neys are hardly to be discerned amid the foliage that 
for a moment holds its slow-rising smokes within a 
verdurous thrall. No rude barriers of wall or fence 
hold the genial fields apart from the highway unless 
the row of stalwart maples marks the invisible line 
of privacy one knows is here. Stop the horse for a 
glance up its drive that betrays the tooth of the 
garden-rake, and even yet moist with the morning 
dews. Invitingly cool it is, and spattered with the 
dancing shadows of the embowering trees. Climbing 
roses hug the pillars of its ample portico. The wide 
veranda is draped with pendant wisteria bloom where 
the polished escutcheon of antique door-knocker 
glows warmly in the reflected sunlight. The air is 
vibrant with bird-songs, and there is somewhere, the 
ring of childish laughter. The horse goes on, and 
one hums a measure of that immortal melody of 
John Howard Payne's. 

History glows and pulsates under the painter's 
brush, as do the habitations of men where history is 
made, and about which Nature has wrought her spell 
of trees, blossoms and birds. History is the founda- 
tion of literature ; and Nature was its foster-mother. 

Like the housewife of days not long gone, and who 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 165 

had a calendar of signs for all the happenings of life, 
who, when she dropped her dish-cloth to the floor, 
declared that strangers were coming, I have an 
inward sensing that strangers are on the road, but I 
have the house set to rights; the birds are in tune, and 
there is the laugh of hoyden childhood on the air. 
There is a hammock on the cool side of the house- 
veranda that swings like a hang-bird's nest in the 
wind, and if it is in the season of snows, the settle is 
in its old place by the rudely chimney-jamb. So, if 
you happen in, we will take a jaunt clown Sagadahoc- 
way, and as we together go over the old tale that has 
so many times been reknitted out of the old ravellings, 
a tuft of grass among the Pemaquid rocks may not 
be the least of our treasure-trove, along with its 
buried pavements and its tumbled walls of old forts, 
the illegible hand-writings of a people who left no 
record other than these silent memorials. 

Savage Pemacuit was a kingdom. Its depen- 
clancies were Muscongus and Sagadahoc, and first 
known as Pemcuit, anglicized into Pemaquid, the 
locality has ever been known by its earliest cognomen. 
One finds it in Hakluyt, and Pemaquid it has ever 
been, ancient and suggestive. Here, at some time in 
the early annals of the aborigines, was the seat of a 
savage power, the place of the great aboriginal 
gatherings and f eastings. Its physical characteristics 
were salient and attractive. It was the domain of 
the later Samoset, the famous sagamore who sur- 
prised the Plymouth settlers with his friendly saluta- 
tion, couched in the mother-tongue of their own 



166 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

country; and the query is colored with pleasing 
conjecture as to where, and how, he accomplished 
even that brief expression. Were Nahanada and 
Skidwarroes his rude school-masters, or is to be 
accepted as evidence that the waters of the Sagadahoc 
were more frequented, and better and more familiarly 
known to the English, than is generally credited by 
the exact historian. I apprehend there is many a 
grain of truth in the numerous assertions that Pema- 
quid was the scene of much English activity in the 
decade following the evacuation of Fort St. George. 
Whether it was, as has been so strenuously maintained, 
so frequented as to suggest the permanency of the 
English domicile, will ever be an open question. It 
was certainly a well-known fishing station. 

When John Davis returned from his several expe- 
ditions, (1585-6-7) to the American continent in 
search of a Northwest Passage, he brought with him 
some "great cods" caught in those waters, some of 
which he gave to Cecil, Lord Chancellor, and he 
writes, — "when his Lordship saw them, and heard 
the relation of my second voyage (1586) I received 
favorable countenance from his honor, advising me to 
prosecute the action of which his Lordship conceived 
a very good opinion." 

It was these few great fish that secured the good 
countenance of the English government, increased 
the English disposition to navigate to these shores in 
search of a like commodity; and yet the government 
went no further. Unlike the French, who made the 
settlement of their colonies an affair of State, and 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 167 

whose early beginnings were paid for out of the public 
exchequer, and whose armed contingents were 
officered and complemented by drafts on the royal 
army, the English Crown left the matter of developing 
the colonial occupation of America to private corpora- 
tions, or land companies, like that of which Warwick, 
Gorges and Popham were the moving spirits, and 
whether they flourished or decayed, was a matter of 
private concern. 

So far as the English were concerned, it had the 
effect to strengthen the English marine by the demand 
for larger and more sea-worthy vessels, and made of 
England, ultimately, a nation of sailors. Her fleets 
grew in size and number, and the fishing industry as 
early as 1615 had assumed considerable proportions. 
The opportunities for barter in furs were not lost, out 
of which grew a contention that resulted in the 
beheading of Charles I. and changed the trend of 
religious worship, which was not lost upon the New 
England colonies, especially that of Plymouth. It 
was one of the causes that lost to Gorges his Palatinate 
of Maine, not counting his adhesion to the royal cause 
in the days when such loyalty was fraught with 
obloquy, sequestration and confiscation of fortune. 
Having this in consideration, it is safe to assert that 
no more favorable spot on the Maine coast could have 
been selected for the propagation of industries incident 
to the fisheries than Cape Small Point, or Pemaquid. 
The latter was, evidently, after the untoward ter- 
mination of the Popham Colony, a favorite stamping- 
ground. 



168 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



Pemaquid lies between Johns Bay on the west, and 
Muscongus Bay on the east. Up, on its northwest 
corner, Pemaquid Bay makes in, to terminate in the 
river of Little Pemaquid, that rises among the vales 
of Waldoboro, and it was here that Waymouth 
anchored in 1605. Striking across country to the 




ENTRANCE TO NEW HARBOR 



eastward, from this sheltered basin a good mile, is 
New Harbor which is marked on some maps as the 
site of the Popham occupation of 1614. From this 
to the extreme end of Pemaquid Point the distance is 
about five miles, and going up on the west side it is 
somewhat farther to the Waymouth anchorage at 
Pemaquid Falls. The entrance to this snug harbor 
is perhaps one hundred and fifty feet in width, and 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 169 

once within its land-environed waters one finds it 
sufficiently "capacious to contain ten ships of the 
line." Here is only the disturbance of the tides to 
distinguish it from an inland pond, which is rarely 
ever ice-bound. It is an ideal haven now, as it was 
in the days when Rosier described its quiet seclusion 
from the tumultuous and storm-driven sea that 
broke with unrestrained fury upon the point lower 
down. Its shore is rimmed with fish-houses and 
quaint old wharves — and as well huge boulders of 
shouldering edges. 

From its outer edge the sea-way is broad in its 
outlook, with Matinicus on the horizon's verge, 
with the out-lying islands and reefs of St. George, 
of which Allen's Island is the extreme out-post to 
mark the western entrance of Penobscot Bay, and 
which fill in the middle distance, with a new picture 
for every angle of the vision. Not far off, perhaps 
eight miles to the southeast, is famous Monhegan 
where the Rev. Thomas Seymour officiated at that 
like famous first church service under the auspices 
of the Popham-Gilbert expedition. At New Harbor 
inlet is a wharf built by the Hand that shaped these 
shores at which ships of large tonnage may berth 
whether the tide be at ebb or flood, a natural quay or 
landing place constructed of solid adamant, a wharf 
cast in rock. 

Crossing Pemaquid overland and westward to 
Little Pemaquid River, from Fort Point to Grave- 
yard Point, northerly, it is perhaps a half-mile. 
Here are the remains of an ancient settlement where 



170 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the pavings of old streets have been found, streets 
constructed with some conformity to a plan with 
crossings at right angles. Who laid these stones or 
who walked upon them is yet to be revealed. Here 
was a rudimentary civilization, and as well all the 
insignia of commerce. To quote Sewall, here were 
"canals, mill-races, lead-works, tanneries, mason- 
work, monumental stones of the dead, — bearing 
dates from 1606 to 1610, — pipes and spoons of the 
Elizabethan age and manufacture." Smith asserts 
that in 1603 the Bristol merchants sent out two 
vessels, one of fifty tons and another of twenty-six 
tons with forty-three men and boys. Robert Salt- 
ern was pilot, the same that made the voyage of the 
previous year with Gosnold. Where these went is 
not stated, but the French, who were the indefatig- 
able recorders of events hereabout after 1604, assert 
that Pemaquid was the first point of land to be 
occupied by the English. One French writer de- 
scribes the bay as "very wide, and fine, good anchor- 
age of five fathom; and opposite the fort, within 
musket-shot, close to the rocks," but Cadillac's 
account is of a later date; but it may be taken to 
have reference to the immediate vicinity of New 
Harbor where the Popham fort of 1614 was supposed 
to have been located. Smith, who was here in 
1614, says, — New England was brought out of 
obscurity, and afforded freight for near two hun- 
dred sail of ships, where is now erected a brave plan- 
tation." He undoubtedly refers to the locality of 
Pemaquid and Monhegan. Swedish annalists assert 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ pEMAQUID 171 



that after 1612 "a number of people went thither," 
(to the Popham settlement). The Jesuit Relations 




PLAN OF OLDEN PEMAQUID 



report a resident English at Pemaquid in 1608-9, 
and the French records have it that those interested 



172 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

in the colony "brought little profit to it until the 
voyage of Captain John Smith." Hubbard, in his 
"Indian Wars" (1677), says, — "the first place 
ever possessed by the English in hopes of making a 
plantation, was a place on the west side of the Ken- 
nebec, called Sagadahoc; and that other places 
adjoining were soon after seized and occupied, — 
and improved in trading and fishing." Sullivan 
avers it to have been a tradition of his lifetime, 
"that there were people at Pemaquicl from the time 
of Gilbert's possession. They were strangers, and 
did not venture south till the stetlement of Ply- 
mouth." 

According to the Plymouth Company Relation, 
Sir Francis Popham, the heir to the estate and 
interests of Sir John Popham, did not relinquish the 
enterprise begun by the latter, "but taking the re- 
maining ships and provisions of the company, con- 
tinued voyages to the coast for trade and fishing." 
The Popham vessels were here in 1614 when Smith 
made his trading and exploring adventure of that 
year. This account of the Plymouth Company is 
authentic and conclusive. Though it does not 
settle the question of whether or not there was a 
permanent colony of English here before the occu- 
pancy of Monhegan, it is a peg on which to hang 
a goocl-sized hat. It is these pegs that the enthu- 
siastic annalist of this locality has stuck here and 
there to his own satisfaction, if not to the convinc- 
ing of the more critical and less easily persuaded 
historical student. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 173 

Dr. DeCosta was an eminent authority and a la- 
borious student of the earlier period of the English 
occupation. He quotes Smith, — who describes his 
visit to Monhegan, — and goes on to say, "opposite 
'in the Maine,' called Pemaquid, was a ship of Sir 
Francis Popham whose people had used the port for 
'many yeares' and had succeeded in monopolizing the 
fur trade." It is unfortunate that a more explicit 
record is not to be had of the ancient doings about 
this famous peninsula of olden Pemaquid. It was 
about this time that Argall came to the eastward, 
as DeCosta says, "for supplies," but it is a query as 
to where he expected to obtain them, unless from the 
settlement at Pemaquid. It is a logical deduction, 
if here was a place well-known as a fur-depot and 
fishing-ground, and visited with great frequency, 
and the ancient authorities agree on that, and over 
which was maintained a jealous surveillance as is 
evidenced from the capture of Plastrier here, in 1611, 
that there must have been on the adjacent mainland 
a settlement which was to be protected, a portion of 
the year, at least, as well as to to be used as a place 
for the drying of fish. It is reasonable as the years 
went on to suppose that the climate had been stripped 
of its terrors by intimacy and acclimation, and that 
so profitable a place for trade would be secured by a 
permanent occupation. 

Smith's statement that there "was not one Chris- 
tian in all the land," is not conclusive. "He could 
not know," says DeCosta, and this eminent writer 
is justified in his assertion. "It is also opposed to 



174 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

recognized fact, and to the declaration of Biard that 
the English in Maine 'desired to be masters.' " This 
same writer is disposed to believe that Captain 
Williams (1612) had his resident agents on Mon- 
hegan who collected furs throughout the year. In 
1613 the Jesuits had got as far south as Mont 
Desert. Biard and Masse were at Somes Sound; 
almost immediately, while they were building, Argall 
swooped down upon them and carried his prey along 
with the French ship to Virginia. 

After the release of Plastrier, Bienville made sail 
for Fort St. George, but only to find a deserted 
palisade, but had he followed the trend of the shore 
of eastern Pemaquid to New Harbor, he might have 
found evidences of a more recent occupation. It is 
likely he sailed direct to Matinicus from Sabino, at 
which former place he found the shallops of Hobson 
and Harlow drawn up on the shore, and who, accord- 
ing to Smith, had set out from Southampton for the 
isle of Cape Cod. Bienville left them undisturbed, 
with the assurance that he was not making war on 
private individuals. 

Argal was in the ship Treasurer when he made his 
raid on the Mission of St. Sauveur, and Champlain 
says this ship mounted fourteen guns, and that in the 
immediate vicinity were ten other English vessels. 
As before noted, this was in 1613, and might be 
reckoned a goodly fleet, betokening a scene of stirring 
activity and a degree of familiarity with the locus in 
quo which is certainly suggestive of other than the 
isolation attributed to Pemaquid during those lean 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQU1D 175 

years of record. These waters have been alluded to by 
some writers as the "neutral ground" but they were 
indisputably under English supremacy, and, certainly, 




ON JOHN'S ISLAND 



during the milder portion of the year, a generous 

harvest-field for the English fisherman and fur-trader. 

Force's Tracts, a quaint repository of annals 

contemporary with the time, has this suggestive 



176 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

paragraph, — "Two goodly Rivers are discovered 
winding farre into the Maine, the one on the North 
part of the land by our Westerne Colonie, Knights 
and Gentlemen of Excester, Plymouth, and others. 
The other in the South part thereof by our Colonie 
of London." A letter written to Coke by Mason 
(1632), who began the colonization of the Piscataqua, 
"teaches that the work of colonization was considered 
as having been continued from 1607." 

These random allusions to the early occupation of 
Pemaquid are suggestions of fact, which, until 
something of a continuous narrative comes to hand, 
some other Strachey, are involved in the mesh of 
uncertainty. Here is, however, more than a "vis- 
ionary theory;" here is circumstantial evidence 
commorant of the time and place. While the proof 
conclusive is absent, a conservative point of view 
would declare the burden of proof on the negative. 

The matter is not a theory, but a condition; and the 
controversy reminds me of an old-time teacher who 
essayed to conduct the winter school in the White 
Rock district of a not far off town. He was not over 
popular though exceptionably well-fitted for the task. 
A few days sufficed to throw down all the fences of 
decorum on the part of the scholars, and finally, as 
one forenoon session neared its close, the pedagogue, 
who boarded with an old farmer whose domicile 
was opposite the school-house, edged toward the door 
and when safely between its lintels, shouted, — 
"School 's out!" and made a run for the farmhouse. 
Out flew the rabble of the huddled desks, and the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 177 

air was thick with snow-balls, each one hurtling 
toward the farmhouse door, while the winds echoed 
with, — 

"Good-bye, teacher! Good-bye, school! 
Good-bye, Major, you old old fool! " 

I apprehend the historical student is not yet ready 
for the previous question on this matter as to per- 
manency of the Pemaquid settlement, in whole, or 
in part, as including the fifteen years following 
1608; otherwise the lot, which fell to some when the 
Strachey MS. was given to the public, might be his. 
Some old English seaport may yet have stored in its 
musty records, the tale of the cobble pavements of 
old Pemaquid. It is not impossible, and something 
yet may come out of Nazareth. Not even the Gorges 
papers are intact, and the Rigby transactions are 
almost wholly lacking. In all matters of ancient 
history, if this can be so denominated, the unknown 
quantity x is ever to be found on one side or the 
other of the equation. 

Be the foregoing of value or not, olden Pemaquid 
was a locality of great natural beauty, and its east- 
side inlet a haven of inviting security. In its physical 
disposition it makes a headland between the Damar- 
iscotta and Meclomack rivers, with a southern trend, 
from almost any part of which may be seen the island 
of Monhegan, the landmark of the neighboring sea, 
that looms huge and stately against the seaward 
horizon. Westward, twenty miles from Monhegan, is 
Seguin, these islands making, with Pemaquid Point, 



178 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

an acute-angled triangle, with Pemaquid at the 
northern apex, a most prominent sea-boundary on 
the coast. It juts into the sea like an index-finger 
and could not but be observed by the first navigators 
to these shores. The indentation of New Harbor is 
a diminutive cove, walled with basalt. Pemaquid 
Harbor across-country on the westward side is a 
veritable Sailor's Snug Harbor, where is an ideal 
summering place, and where one may moon about 
the ruins of an old fort, and prod among the cobbles 
of old streets, and lay out for one's self an olden town 
without a history, and practise all the arts of magic 
at hand, to, Endor-like, raise the dead of an adven- 
turous race to throng these long-forsaken thorough- 
fares with its ancient life ; or, gazing out to sea, paint 
Waymouth's high-pooped ship in the offing of Mon- 
hegan; or, coming back to land again, survey the 
savage glutton beside his shell-heap. When the night 
falls, and the lights of Franklin Island, Monhegan, 
Seguin, and the nearer Pharos of Pemaquid Point 
flash each to the other luminous greeting, one can 
drowse and dream, in the hammock on the cottage 
veranda, of the wild life here of three centuries ago, 
and follow down the sinuous, and as well, dubious 
path of the English civilization that has made this 
restful quiet possible; for, here is historic ground, 
every inch of which, saturated with the mystery of 
its earliest occupation, holds a dormant germ of 
romance more fascinating than has been written. 
When the wind is right, and the waters on the shore 
are softly attuned, one hears the song of the old mill- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 179 

wheel that turned at the foot of the ancient canal that 
one can trace to the falls a little to the northward of 
the old fort ruins, and the whir of the rumbling 
stones that ground the yellow corn, or the growl of the 
up-and-down saw as it ate out the hearts of the 
knotless pines ; or if one is good at making things out 
of nothing one may out of dishevelled Nature rebuild 
the mill and catch the miller fumbling his meal at 







PEMAQUID LIGHT 



his meal-box. One is like to do all these, for it is 
in the atmosphere. All have caught the distemper, 
from Hubbard, Sullivan, and Williamson, down; and 
it is a most delightful sort of mental invalidism, for 
one never needs to call in the family physician, — 
it is generally the alienist's services which are 
needed. 

In the early days the fur-trade was jealously sought, 
and all the influences which might compass it, were 
brought to bear upon the native trapper. Smith 
says of his first voyage in 1614, "we got for trifles 



180 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

near eleven thousand Bever skines, one hundred 
Martins, as many Otters, and most of them within a 
distance of twenty leagues : we ranged the coast both 
east and west much farther, but eastward our com- 
modities were not esteemed, they were so neere the 
French who afforded them better, with whom the 
Salvages had such commerce, that only by trade, they 
made exceeding great voyages, though they were 
without the limits of our precincts." 

Both the French and English made pretense to 
exclusive territorial jurisdiction, and the monopoly 
of the trade was the source of the contention, in which 
was held the germ of the Indian troubles that, from 
1675, for almost three-quarters of a century, made 
the Province of Maine east of York and Wells, a 
debateable ground, and as well a blood-stained one. 
The French, fully as mercenary as the English, were 
more politic, and far deeper in their craft. It was 
not the errand of civilization which the Jesuit was 
upon when he penetrated the fastnesses of the savages, 
else he would not have adopted the aboriginal habit. 
He substituted for the superstitions of the pow-wow 
the mysterious forms of the Church, and as one 
writer puts it, — "the new superstitions were scarcely 
better than the old diabolisms." The Jesuit was 
fitted, by his schooling, to become the leader of this 
savage cult, who accorded to him the powers of a 
wizard. He was their meclicine-man, and it was to 
the concoctions of the French, distributed through 
the offices of the Church, that the savage enmity to 
the English was kept at a white heat. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD** PEMAQUID 181 

In Cotton Mather's "Magnalia" one finds this, — 
Bommaseen, a principal Sagamore of the tribes about 
the Penobscot, and other Indians, as well (1696), 
said "the French taught 'em, that the Lord Jesus 
Christ was of the French nation; that his mother, the 
Virgin Mary, was a French lady; that they were the 
English who had murdered him, and that whereas 
he rose and went up to the Heavens, all that would 
recommend themselves unto his favor, must revenge 
his quarrel upon the English as far as they can." 
Dr. Jackson, in his Geology of Maine, records an 
Indian asking him " if Bethlehem where Christ was 
born was not a town in France ? " It was these singu- 
lar teachings which may have been magnified by the 
credulous Mather, that "waked the deadly war-whoop, 
incited the stealthy Indian to fire the planter's 
solitary cabin with the midnight torch, and scatter 
the brains of the helpless inmates with the toma- 
hawk," and it was at the feet of the Jesuit that these 
hideous trophies of rapine were laid. Of course these 
things were all the fruits of years, but the French 
had begun before Popham and Gilbert sailed into 
Sagadahoc River, to sow the seed and to occupy the 
planting-lands of the savage superstition which was 
to widen out into the wilderness of Norridgewack 
a half-century later. Pemaquid was for years the 
pivotal point on which turned the fortunes of the 
French extension. Sewall's account of the French 
occupation of an island adjacent to Pemaquid as 
early as 1604 is probably an error, as it was at St. 
Croix that Du Monts and Champlain wintered 1604-5 



182 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

and it was from that first vantage-ground that the 
French influence was extended to the westward 
which was to invite the attention of Argall at Mont 
Desert. It was this onslaught at the Mission of St. 
Sauveur where was lighted the match which was not 
blown for a century and a half. 

As for the territory of Pemaquid, its boundaries 
were of an indefinite character, nor was it necessary 
that they should be defined, but the name may be 
considered to be local in its appellation, as it has been 
suggested by one writer, and aptly, that the word 
translated into English would be descriptive of Pema- 
quid Point, — land jutting into the sea. However 
this may be, one finds its out reaching rocks, glisten- 
ing wet with the salt spray, or drifted over with the 
snow of the breakers, sufficiently picturesque to 
warrant its acceptance. 

The settlement, from the present point of view, 
may be considered to be contemporary with that of 
Plymouth. The grant to John Pierce (June 1, 1621) 
is alleged to have been the first title of Pemaquid 
lands by the Plymouth Company, and the tradition 
was extant in 1750 that Pierce settled on the east 
shore of Pemaquid. He received this grant as the 
advance agent for the Plymouth Puritans, according 
to Bradford and Dean. If one goes by Hubbard, 
this Pemaquid country, without defining the exact 
locality, had no permanent colony until about 
1620, but other writers give Monhegan the prece- 
dence by two years. But this settlement of Pierce 
is doubted, and Bradford says that while he set out on 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 183 

his voyage, he was beaten and baffled by the sea and 
the winds; his property was swept away; his integrity 
soiled; and himself and the adventurers whom he 
represented involved in a long-drawn litigation, to 
finally pass out of the world wearing the mantle of 
utter poverty. It was in early 1623 that he sailed 
for Plymouth in his own vessel, the Parragon, laden 
with freight and passengers for the colony. Brad- 
ford says Pierce set out "at his own charge, upon 
hope of great maters, and that he meant to keep the 
patent to himselfe, and allow the Plymouth planters 
what territory he pleased, they to hold of him as 
tenants, and sue to his courts as chief Lord." This 
voyage he did not complete, being compelled by his 
ship's condition to put back to the home port, where 
his crippled finances prevented his further ventures 
toward New England. It has been alleged that he 
established a plantation at Broad Bay (Pemaquid), 
and the declaration of Samuel Welles of Boston, 
11th September, 1750, is referred to as supporting 
the claim. It is sufficiently interesting so that it 
will bear quotation in part. He testifies to having 
in his hands the original patent, bearing six seals, 
among which are those of Warwick, Lenox, and 
Hamilton, and which is dated June 1st, 1621. He 
says, " The sum and substance of this patent of June 
1st, 1621, is a grant to one John Pierce, a citizen of 
London, of liberty to come and settle in New England, 
with divers priviliges in such place as he or his asso- 
ciates should choose under certain limitations of not 
interfering with other grants, or settling within ten 



184 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

miles of any other settlement, unless on the opposite 
side of some great and navigable river, and on 
return made, to have further grants or privileges. 
Now, as I am informed, and hear, it is agreed on all 
hands, Mr. Pierce came over here and settled; that 
is, at a place called Broad Bay, and there his pos- 
terity continued above one hundred years; some 
time after the settlement was begun, one Mr. Brown 
made a purchase of a large tract of land of the 
natives; and as Mr. Pierce's was the most ancient 
grant thereabouts, they united the grant from home 
with the purchase of the natives, and it is said, that 
the Indians have ever acknowledged the justice of 
our claims, and never would burn Pierce's house, 
even though he left it." 

Willis says, in a foot-note, "It does not appear to 
me that the patent or charter referred to in Weston's 
letter of July 6, 1621, contained in Bradford's history, 
is at all identified with that of Pierce, but a fair con- 
struction of the language is against it. Weston says, 
page 107, 'We have procured you a charter, the best 
we could, which is better than your former, and with 
less limitation.' Now the famed charter to Pierce 
of June 1, 1621, does not at all answer that 
description and I must still consider that, the lost 
document has not yet come to light." The whole 
matter seems swathed in current tradition. The 
sworn statement of Welles can be taken for nothing 
more, so far as Pierce's actual settlement goes. 
It is here given because it is so closely interwoven 
with the story of the first days of this settlement, 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 185 

as an admitted permanent settlement, and for 
nothing more. 

With John Brown comes something more tangible. 
He was, perhaps, inclined to come hither through the 
influence of Pierce, or perhaps Jennens, who had the 
first grant of Monhegan. He settled at New Harbor, 
made friends with the Indians, and so got into the 
good graces of the Sagamore Samoset as to obtain 
from him the following comprehensive title, which 
may be considered the earliest of its kind. 

"To all people whom it may concern. Know ye, 
that I, Captain John Somerset and Unongoit, Indian 
Sagamores, they being the proper heirs to all lands 
on both sides of the Muscongus River, have bar- 
gained and sould to John Brown of New Harbour, 
this certain tract or parcell of land, as followeth, that 
is to say, beginning at Pemaquid Falls and so running 
a direct course to the head of New Harbour, from 
thence to the South End of Muscongus Island, taking 
in the island, and so running five and twenty miles 
into the Country north and by east, and thence eight 
miles northwest and by west, and then turning and 
running south and by west, to Pemaquid, where first 
begun. To all which lands above bounded, the said 
Captain John Somerset and Unongoit, Indian Saga- 
mores, have granted and made over to the above said 
John Brown, of New Harbour, in and for considera- 
tion of fifty skins, to us in hand paid, to our full 
satisfaction, for the above mentioned lands and we 
the above said Indian Sagamores, do bind ourselves 
and our heirs forever, to defend the above said John 



186 YE ROMANCE OF OLD® PEMAQUID 

Brown, and his heirs in the quiet and peaceable posses- 
sion of the above said lands. In witness whereunto, 
I the said Captain John Somerset and Unongoit, 
have set our hands and seals this fifteenth day of July, 
in the year of our Lord God, one thousand six hundred 
and twenty-five. 

his 
Captain John Somerset. X 

mark, 
his 
Unongoit. X (L. S.) 

mark. 

Signed and sealed in presence of 
Matthew Newman, 
William Cox." 

Samoset was the William Penn of savages, and the 
solicitous friend of the English settler. No adverse 
circumstance or influence could sway his loyalty. He 
was always steadfast as the headland of old Pemaquid 
that marked his ancient domain before he parted 
with it to Brown. His influence and that of Squanto 
induced Massasoit to enter into a friendly treaty with 
the colony at Plymouth. He met Christopher 
Levett in 1623, and he struck up a friendship for him 
so that he was wont to call him "cousin Levett", and 
he proposed that their sons should be brothers; and, 
as between themselves, a mouchicke legamatch, a 
compact of friendship, which should last until the 
Sagamore of the Happy Hunting-grounds, the great 
Tanto, should send his messenger with the over- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 187 

shadowing wings for him. Samoset was as kindly 
disposed to John Brown as to Levett. He loved the 
Englishman. He liked the taste of his salt, and his 
hand was open. He had land enough and to spare, 
and one can hear him saying, 

"He shall have the land, and water, and wood; 
And he who harms the Sagamore John," 




cUA 




shall see the frown of Samoset and shrink before his 
displeasure. One would like to know just where was 
the seat of Samoset's government in those days, just 
where his clustered wigwams lent the incense of their 
fires to the winds. As one writer says, he was the 
first to welcome the English settler in his mother 



188 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

tongue, and the first to part with, his hunting-lands, 
voluntarily. It was a significant act, and pregnant 
with ominous prophecy to the aborigine. Among 
his people he stands alone, and among the traditions 
of the red man, he seems more a mythical personage 
than a real. The times of his appearing are three. 
First, he is the friend of the isolated Pilgrims; next, 
the boon companion of Levett; and last, the gener- 
ously-disposed benefactor of the apparently real 
pioneer of Pemaquid, John Brown; and outside of 
Levett, his confidence was not misplaced, nor did his 
judgment of men go astray. As to Levett's sincerity, 
his story of his purpose with these "sons of Noah" 
to "carry things very fairly without compulsion (if 
it be possible) for avoiding of treachery," stamps the 
hall-mark of his character plainly enough. His 
civilization stands impeached beside that of the 
great-hearted Samoset. 

Bradford has this account of Samoset's appearance 
at Plymouth: "The wind beginning to rise a little, 
we cast a horseman's coat about him; for he was stark 
naked, only a leather about his waist with a fringe 
about a span long, or a little more. He had a bow 
and two arrows, the one headed and the other un- 
headed. He was a tall straight man; the hair on 
his head black, long behind, only short before; none 
on his face at all. He asked for some beer, but we 
gave him some strong water, and biscuit, and butter 
and cheese and pudding, and a piece of mallard; all 
of which he liked well, and had been acquainted with 
such among the English." 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 189 

Bradford makes note that the afternoon was spent 
in conversation. One would have enjoyed being of 
that famous company, and, woman-like, would have 
kept silence, having in mind Paul's apostolic sugges- 
tion to the feminine portion of the church. Whether 
poet or painter essayed the scene, it was the subject 
for an idyllic treatment. It was an episode of the 
highest historic quality; and here was no setting of 
palatial seat of government, but the crudities of a 
rude shelter whose interior was as barren and homely 
as the environment was primitive along the shifting 
sands of Cape Cod. Note the simple fare, and yet, I 
doubt not but the entertainment was ample, and that 
here was a feast of reason, and a flow of soul, and a 
congenial mingling of sincerity to crystalize Samoset's 
friendship into a brilliant of the first water. This 
seems to be the only instance recorded of Samoset's 
being entertained at the English table. Levett's 
account is barren. Brown is utterly silent, though 
Samoset was doubtless a frequent guest after Shurt's 
advent into Pemaquid affairs. Shurt was evidently 
a cold-eyed man of business, and Samoset finds no 
place in his daily round. 

It is supposed that Tappan's Island, not far from 
Damariscotta, was the great burial place of the Mon- 
hegan Indians. Numerous skeletons have been 
found of the aborigine on that island. They were 
about two feet below the surface of the ground, and 
from the disposition of the remains, they were buried 
in a sitting posture with their knees drawn upward, 
and facing the sunrise. In some instances sheets of 



190 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

copper were found over the skulls. In one grave a 
knife with a copper blade and a bone handle was 
discovered, probably of French manufacture. It was 
the custom to leave with the deceased warrior a bit 
of food and his weapons of the chase, so that he might 
be prepared for his entrance into the Happy Hunting- 
grounds. 

Samoset was great; great above his environment; 
greater than many a pale-face whose name is linked 
to the fortunes of those early days, because his great- 
ness was au naturel. With the civilization of Win- 
throp, he would have been a greater Winthrop, with 
Winthrop's tact, John Eliot's deeps of humanity, and 
Experience Mayhew's passionate ardor. He flashed 
across the low horizon of his time like a star spanning 
the night sky to leave a luminous trail above the 
sands of Cape Cod. He recalls the romance of the 
woods, and in the realm of Nature where he ruled his 
tribe, he was her apostle; and marvel though it be, 
his memory is as perennial as the may-flower that 
blooms among the rugged places once familiar to his 
tread. It is the breath of the wildling blossom 
itself. 

He reminds one of John, crying in the wilderness, 
— "Make way!" a prophet announcing the doom 
unwittingly of his race. One would like to rend the 
pall of those last days of Samoset. As one goes 
through the woodland, the sound of its giant tree 
crashing its way through the lesser saplings that have 
climbed up in its genial shade, like children clustering 
about the tale-making old man, startles the som- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 191 

nolent silences into sharp vibrance as the resounding 
shock leaves its huge bulk prone upon the forest 
floor. One follows the way the warning came to look 
upon the fallen obelisk of pine that had withstood the 
tempestuous buffetings of a century, a mute relic of 
a former grandeur; for, here lies the stateliest shaft of 
the woods, whose head was soonest to catch the 
golden breaking of the dawn, and last to receive the 
ruddy benediction of the setting sun ; the landmark of 
the wilderness, from whose dusky spire the vagrant 
crow turned like a weather-cock, his head to the wind, 
or shouted his raucous challenge to the Sower as he 
scattered his seed on some adjacent hillside. Here 
were the poetry and pathos of Nature to mark the 
rounding out of a woodland cycle. 

So fell Samoset among his tribe, like the forest 
giant in the domains of his ancestors. Mayhap it 
was not long after his dividing his coat with Brown, 
that this fine aboriginal spirit faded away as the song 
of the thrush into the silence of the night. Nothing 
more is heard of him. His voice is drowned in the 
clamor of the jealous activities of trade at Pemaquid, 
and singular it is that this silence should have been so 
abrupt. Like the smokes of his fires caught up by 
the winds to disappear within the mystery of the 
deeper wilderness, went the spirit of Samoset, while 
that husk, familiar to his people, lay within his 

"Roof of bark and walls of pine, 
Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine, 
Tracing many a golden line 
On the ample floor within; 



192 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Where upon the earth-floor stark, 
Lay the gaudy mats of bark, 
With the bear's hide, rough and dark, 
And the red deer's skin. 

"Window-tracery, small and slight, 
Woven of the willow white, 
Lent a dimly checkered light, 

And the night-stars glimmered down, 
Where the lodge-fire's heavy smoke, 
Slowly through an opening broke, 
In the low roof, ribbed with oak, 

Sheathed with hemlock brown," 

awaiting the rites proffered by the Indian to his 
dead. 

One can feel the drowsy spell that lay over the 
woods and the waters of the bay as his sun sank 
slowly through a cloudless west, and conjure up 

"The soot-black brows of men, — the yell 
Of women thronging round the bed, — 
The tinkling charm of ring and shell, — 
The Powah whispering o'er the dead; " 

but one likes rather to think his ears attuned to the 
songs of the birds and the sighing requiem of the 
purring winds to paint along the walls of his lodge 
the shadow-dance of the leaves. 

But the pathos of that Indian burial, how simple, 
yet how gently solicitous, and how abounding in 
faith, were these rude children of the forest in these 
last rites! Those Happy Hunting-grounds were far 
away. The Great Spirit was everywhere, — in the 
broad pennons of the spindling maize; in the purl- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 193 

ing streams; the glowing heats of the summer sun; 
the fulness of the harvest moon; the mist-wrought 
clouds, and in all things that were sweet, beneficent 
and beautiful as the seasons came and went with their 
infinite variety; but those great preserves of fish and 
game, the wide Hunting-lands of the Hereafter, were 
far beyond the Waumbek Methna where the sun 
wrought the fabric of the night. It was a journey 
of how many sleeps, or even moons, they knew 
not. 

When the Sachem had been arrayed in his hunting- 
suit of deer-skin, tanned to the softness of chamois, 
and his feathered head-dress was as he liked best to 
wear it, his people hollowed out a shallow seat in 
Mother Earth's lap, and there they gently sat him 
down, with his knees drawn up to his chin, his inert 
arms folded over them, his head bent like that of a 
statuesque seer, for his face was turned to the Spirit 
of Life when it should next herald the dawn above 
the far eastern rim of the sea. His bow, arrow and 
axe were placed by his side, and a pouch of parched 
corn, that which he was so fond of when the winter 
snows lay deep and he had hung his snowshoes in the 
smoke to dry the wet out of their thongs, that he 
might have that with which to refresh himself as he 
travelled his lonely way. 

There were no swathings of fine linen; no redolent 
spices; no magic rites, or Egyptian juggleries; no 
sarcophagi inlaid with gold, or crusted with jewels; 
no Phidias-wrought marbles; stately shaft whereon 
one read the story of his gentle deeds, no fulsome 



194 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

flatteries, or protecting exhalations of dead flowers, 
but the committing of dust to dust. The moist 
earth caressed his face. He was in his mother's 
arms, and she held him as closely to her bosom as a 
nursing babe. It was the hospitality that speeds 
the parting guest who has gone out into the swift- 
falling shadows of the night, whose obscurity is 
veiled by the mists of sorrow. 

How simple this savage giving to earth her own! 
and with the 

"mound of burial made, 
There trailed the vine in summer hours, 

The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell 
On velvet moss and pale-hued flowers, 
Woven with leaf and spray, the softened 
sunshine fell; " 

and Samoset had joined 

"the mystic vanishers! 

"And the fisher in his skiff, 

And the hunter on the moss, 
Hear their call from cape and cliff, 
See their hands the birch-leaves toss. 

"Wistful, longing, through the green 
Twilight of the clustered pines, 
In their faces rarely seen 

Beauty more than mortal shines. 

"Fringed with gold their mantles flow 
On the slopes of westering knolls; 
In the wind they whispered low 
Of the sunset Land of Souls." 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 195 

Cardinal Newman had yet to voice that great 
and sudden heart-cry as the cold breath of the mist 
swept up from the Dark Valley, to snuff out the 
wavering flame of Life's guttering candle; but the 
kindly light of Tanto flooded his way with a gentle 
effulgence, and the bow and arrow, and the corn, 
were left behind. 

"The hills are dearest which our childish feet 
Have climbed the earliest ; and the streams most sweet 
Are ever those at which our young lips drank, 
Stooped to the waters o'er the grassy bank; " 

so, Samoset had gone back to the spring of life, and 
those who came after him to upturn the sacred 
ground with vandal hands, found but a nameless 
hero in a nameless grave. The deep woods of Pema- 
quid faded as he went, as if in sympathy. His 
nature was the reflex of the scenes he loved best, 
quiet, generous, and unobtrusive. He is not remem- 
bered as a savage, the sachem of a barbarous horde, 
but as a child of Nature, whose copper-colored face 
was the sun shining upon many waters ; whose voice 
was as musical as that of the white-throated spar- 
row; and whose heart was as wide as the universe. 
And now as then, 

"The verdant hillside slopes ad own 
To where the sparkling waters play 

Upon the yellow sands below; 
And shooting round the winding shores 

Of narrow capes, and isles which lie 

Slumbering to ocean's lullaby, — 
With birchen boat and glancing oars," 



196 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the invisible spirits of 

"The red men to their fishing go; 
While from their planting ground is borne 
The treasure of the golden corn, 
By laughing girls, whose dark eyes glow 
Wild through the locks which o'er them flow. 
The wrinkled squaw whose work is done, 
Sits on her bear-skin in the sun, 
Watching the huskers, with a smile 
For each full ear which swells the pile; 
And the old chief, who nevermore 
May bend the bow or pull the oar, 
Smokes gravely in his wigwam door," 

while the cottagers swing in their hammocks lazily, 
gazing dreamily at the sea unmindful of the ghostly 
pictures that throng the scene. 

Somerset's sign-manual was a bow and arrow; 
and according to Jocelyn, 1673, "Summersant was 
formerly a famous Sachem," among the Eastern 
tribes. His island was at the mouth of Broad Bay. 
Perhaps it was there his burial took place. 

According to Governor Pownall, "the European 
land-workers, when they came to settle in America, 
began trading with the Indians, and obtained leave 
of them to cultivate small tracts, as settlements or 
dwellings. The Indians having no other idea of 
property than was conformable to their transient, 
temporary dwelling-places, readily granted this. 
When they came to perceive the very different effect 
of settlements of land-workers creating a permanent 
property, always extending itself, they became very 
uneasy; but yet, in the true spirit of justice and 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 197 



honour, abided by the effects of concessions which 
they had made, but which they would not have 
made, had they understood the force of them." 

Samoset had no realization that he was selling his 
birthright for a mess of pottage, alienating the lands 
of his fore-fathers according to a legal formulary, 
establishing the meum and tuum between himself and 
a stranger, by metes and bounds, for all time; and 




SURF AT PEMAQUID 

it was a year and nine days after, that the final 
act of transfer was consummated, when Captain 
John Somerset and Unongoit, on the 24th day of 
July, 1626, personally appeared and acknowledged 
the conveyance to Brown to be "their free act and 
deed," before Abraham Shurt. 

In these days Pemaquid was growing to be a busy 
locality, perhaps the scene of the greatest activity 
on the New England Coast. The Pilgrims were at 



198 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Plymouth having a not over easy lot in their struggle 
for a permanent foothold; Conant had begun to 
turn up the ground at Cape Ann; George Richmon 
was making his first voyages to Champlain's Isle of 
Bacchus where Bagnall and John Winter, in turn, 
were to play their little roles, and at Pemaquid were 
the ships of Weston, Gorges and Thomson; while 
farther to the eastward, the French were propagat- 
ing with equal assiduity the tenets of the Jesuit and 
a profitable trade in furs. 

Pring was here in 1602. Many a voyage had been 
since projected to these shores and the rugged con- 
tour of its coast was not, at the end of twenty-four 
years, an unfamiliar country. It was during these 
activities that Abraham Shurt appears upon the stage 
of Pemaquid. This acknowledgment, drawn by this 
man, precise, concise, and compact in its wording, 
is, and has ever since been, the jurat incorporated 
into all deeds of realty transfers. That it was with- 
out precedent makes it more interesting; for, as a 
formula, it is perfection itself, and has obtained for 
Shurt the appellation of "The Father of American 
Conveyancing." Where Shurt obtained his qualifi- 
cation to adminster oaths and to exercise the powers 
of 'a magistrate, as it is evident he did, has been a 
matter of some query, but he may have assumed 
the power on the ground that such an acknowledg- 
ment before a private citizen would be evidence of 
intent and sufficiently binding as the admission of a 
contract, express in form. There is no question 
from what afterward occurred, that Brown and Shurt 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 199 

had a very good understanding, and that there 
existed a definite interest after the purchase of the 
Jennens patent by Aldworth and Elbridge, under 
whose direction the affairs of Monhegan and Pema- 
quid took on a semblance of solidity, and as well 
the encouraging atmosphere of prosperity. War- 
burton says, that, at this time, Pemaquid was even 
larger than Quebec; and in 1630 the population was 
divided into eighty-four families whose aggregate 
was about six hundred English-speaking people. 

Here was an ambitious settlement which would 
compare with some of our largest villages of today. 
It may be considered to have been a compact settle- 
ment, with compact and communal interests. It 
was not unlikely somewhat modelled upon the 
English village, but the speculation as to the period 
in which the old cobble pavements of Fort Point had 
their origin, is unsettled, though some have- assigned 
them to the fort-building period. One would like 
the archaeologist tell him something more definite 
as to the people, or their time, as he goes over these 
ancient remains of streets and suggestions of industrial 
operations at Little Pemaquid River. One only 
needs to go over the ground to realize that the story 
of Pemaquid after the coming of Shurt in 1625, has 
little to do with these old ruins, although by that time 
the building of houses, and mills upon permanent 
foundations had begun. It is assumed that Shurt 
located with Brown at New Harbor. There was no 
element of unstability in this enterprise of Shurt, but 
the rather the planning of a career for himself and his 



200 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUW 

people, founded upon the solidity of material things. 
Here was a new Carthage. The olden city of wood, 
built upon the sands of Cape Small Point, had fallen 
into decay, but the new, founded among the rocks, 
bordering upon a natural harbor running up into the 
land, and ending in a small pond which was admirably 
situated for a canal service, was evidently unutilized, 
although, as one of the natural and economic factors 
upon which the success of his enterprise depended, 
Shurt might have made it an adjunct of profit. It 
is admitted that here at Pemaquid was the most im- 
portant and populous community, and port of entry 
of New England; and the brains, that as early as 
1632 had made it such, were fertile enough to adapt 
to its needs every available aid to the continuance of 
its prosperity. But that these adjuncts of a canal, — 
mills, tannery vats, a blacksmith shop — were on the 
upper west shore of Pemaquid Point were not specif- 
ically alluded to in any relation of its local history, is 
not singular because very little of its history of that 
time, that is, of the doings appurtenant to its liveli- 
hoods, if any, have survived, and it is probable they 
were of prior origin. Only the few notable characters 
whose hands were on the helm of its adventures are 
mentioned, and the relations of their doings are only 
too meagre. Those were epoch-making days at 
Pemaquid, and only such doings as marked the turn 
of the epoch remain to the annalist. The first 
authentic epoch was marked by Weymouth's explo- 
ration of the Sagadahoc and the Kennebec. The 
second was when Popham and Gilbert faced the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 201 

snow-laden winter of 1607-8. In the interregnum 
between that date and Samoset's deed to John Brown, 
1625, minor incidents happened like the visit of 
Captain John Smith, of Dermer, of Rocroft's half- 
famished sailors wintering on Monhegan, of Harlow 
and Hobson mending their shallops on an adjoining 
island; but Samoset's conveyance to Brown marked 
the third epoch. The coming of Abraham Shurt 







SITE OF THE OLD FORGES 



under the auspices of Aldworth and Elbridge in 
1626 marked the fourth. 

It was then that the building up of this famous 
old town began. No need to tell who was at that 
time laying the foundations of a new house. All 
the houses were comparatively new. There was an 
abundance of stone and timber, and these people, it 
might be assumed, had all the appliances by which 
they might after a fashion be constructed into habit- 
able abodes. A community of eighty families 
would require as many houses, and the first thing, 



202 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

with such an aggregation of humanity, would be the 
laying out of streets and the parcelling out of house- 
lots. It would be the natural result of their English 
training, and when the walls were up the vines began 
to clamber up to the eaves, and things grew to look 
homelike. It was natural there should be some 
pride in this orderly arrangement of affairs; for, 
wherever the housewife comes there is cleanliness and 
adornment. 

A fort was erected very early in the history of the 
place, but there is no assurance that the site of the 
old Fort Frederick is the site of the earliest one 
built. It is simply stated that a fort was built, 
and it has been so accepted. That marked the 
epoch when the sense of insecurity had compelled 
some such provision for the safety of the community 
at large, but the same would not hold true of a black- 
smith-shop or a grist mill. This career which Shurt 
marked out for Pemaquid in its inception was a 
successful one. It brought to the place a large 
trade, with a continually increasing fleet of ships 
which brought supplies and went home to England 
laden with fish and furs, and upon which many an 
English fortune was founded. It was needful that 
there should be a mill for the grinding of the corn 
that was raised upon these rich lands, and a saw for 
the sawing of the great pines into lumber for the 
houses that were springing up like mushrooms in 
the night. One listens for the rumble of the stones 
and the gnawing of the saw, and one almost hears 
them. One watches the huge over-shot wheel with 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 203 

its broad, flat paddles throwing the water-drops at 
the sun, or mingling its rhythmic plash with the 
tinkle of the hammer on the smithy's anvil; for, 
wherever the busy mill-wheel turns, there is the 
anvil song. Shoes were worn in those days, as they 
are now, and there was need of leather, and so there 
was need of the vats of the tanner, and the bark of 
the hemlock and the oak were in abundance, and 
pipe-staves were a profitable product, and oak was 
the proper timber from which to rive them. It 
was a busy place, and every one was busy. The 
intention was to make it a self-supporting com- 
munity, and Shurt's energies were bent to that one 
purpose, and from what has come down to us of the 
man, he was minting the interests of his principals 
into current coin of the realm. The Elizabethan 
relics that have been found here are the legitimate 
finds of the time, and are another possible sugges- 
tion that these industrial remains were of the time 
of Shurt, but only on the assumption that Shurt 
located on the west side. 

One writer has said that the English were not 
resourceful in extremity. That may be true, but 
they knew something of canals and water-wheels, 
and this canal was the result of association with 
similar appliances. Water-power and water-wheels, 
were no new invention. How one would have 
enjoyed standing by when the gate of the first dam 
at Pemaquid was raised, and, of course, with an old- 
fashioned lever, and watched the down-rush of the 
water through the trench that was deepened with 



204 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

every on-flowing drop. One would not have been 
alone, for doubtless the whole village was on hand to 
see the water run and to hear its gurgling music; 
and then, when the great cumbersome mill-wheel 
started, what a mingled shout went up, — "It 
turns! It turns!" and the saw began to go up and 
down, and the rough burr-stones to whir, and one 
can see the miller smile; and then his face is lighted 
as with a vision; for, as he looks out his wide-open 
door where the checkered shade falls on its thres- 
hold, he sees a vision, and reads the prophecy of the 
future. 

"Broad on either hand 
The golden wheatfields glimmered in the sun, 
And the tall maize its yellow tassels spun, 
Smooth highways set with hedge-rows, living green, 
With steepled towns through shaded vistas seen, 
The school-house murmuring with its hive-like swarm 
The brook-bank whitening in the grist-mill's storm, 
The painted farm-house shining through the leaves 
Of fruited orchards bending at it its eaves." 

But this building of an old town is like the build- 
ing of a house of cards, to be blown down with a 
breath, for it is a truth that there were no mills at 
Pemaquid in Shurt's first decade as the corn was 
taken from Pemaquid to the wind-mill at Boston to 
to be ground into meal, and the supplies for the 
Shurt Settlement were brought over the seas, and 
paid for with fish and furs. There is no question but 
there has been at some time an important settlement 
opposite the narrows that let one into the inner 
harbor of Little Pemaquid River. If one will look 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 205 

at the map one will get some suggestion of the re- 
mains of the ancient burg, and they are rich in specu- 
lation; and that is all that has ever come of it. 
These curious relics are on the old Partridge Farm 
and were first discovered by the ploughman. As 
the plough came to where the old streets were covered 
by the debris of centuries, it was as if a ledge of rock 




PEMAQUID RIVER, INNER HARBOR 



lay unearthed, but it was of too regular and smooth 
construction to be the work of Nature, and this 
under layer of stone extended the width of the 
plowed lands and held all the way the same width. 
It was noticed in the growing of the grain and the 
grass above this deposit that it had the semblance of 
a drowth-stricken vegetation. Then an investiga- 
tion by a regular excavation was made, and the 
regular pavings of a street were exposed some twelve 



206 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQU1D 

inches under the surface and they were found to be 
disposed as indicated upon the map-sketch. A 
cache was discovered upon the outer point north of 
what were apparently the remains of an old fort. 
The Graveyard of this colony was found to be a 
half-mile to the north. In a southerly direction, 
about the same distance remains of several old 
forges were discovered and an excavation there 
brought to light masses of slag, bits of iron, hand- 
wrought nails. Remains of a clay pipe industry 
were discovered. What was most singular about 
these street pavings, was the laying of them appar- 
ently in a cement and in defined sections. They 
were no higher in the middle than on their edges, 
and presented a work of rude art. Not far from the 
burying-ground were the remains of an old dam and 
the trench of a canal, and a little farther to the north 
on the east side of Little Pemaquid River was an 
old ship-yard. The remains of an old saw-pit have 
been unearthed. One can see to-day the old pave- 
ment where it has been skimmed of its soil and 
fenced in. Much of it has in other places been 
carried away by curiosity-seekers. Old Fort Point 
seems to have been the theatre of those ancient 
doings and will well repay a visit. It is a beautiful 
place in summer, and the whole atmosphere of the 
locality breathes of romance and tradition. Far- 
ther up the river, on the west side, are the remains 
of an old fort. Old residents here have become very 
jealous of these relics and a rude museum has been 
built in which they may be preserved. One Pema- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 207 

quid antiquarian says it was not many years ago 
that he was able to count a line of old cellars along 
one of these streets, and that he had counted seventy 
of them side by side. Another says there were 
three hundred of them. Many of them show de- 
pressions even in these days, though they have been 
obliterated by plowing and using them as convenient 
receptacles for the troublesome sods of the fields 
that were a hinderance to clean cultivation. Foun- 
dations of split stone have been found where they 
have been used as cellar-walls, and it is also noted 
that the size of these houses varied little on the 
ground, being by measurement somewhere about 
twenty-five by thirty feet, which one must admit 
was a generous dimension. There is no data by 
which the identity of the times or their builders can 
be established. It was certainly before the first 
Indian war; but how long before, is purely a matter 
of conjecture. One must place its origin before 
1620, even. 

Suppose one sets up his easel and essays to brush 
in the scene, a quaint bit of Old England, trans- 
planted to these strange shores. The sunlight 
streams down the cobbled streets to fill them with a 
mellow drowsing, the glamour of a summer morning. 
Cool shadows lie across the moist stones where the 
sloping gables jut to the edge of the narrow foot-way. 
Masses of ivy climb to the down-bent eaves and 
hood the doorways with a cool caressing touch of 
living-green to lend a brush of color to the picture. 
The stubbed red chimneys, — at least one thinks 



208 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

they may have been red, for these people were not 
unacquainted with the arts of pottery making, — 
hug each peaked gable and are crowned with purling 
smokes that drop down in purpling threads to tickle 
one's nostrils with hints of the hospitable hearths 
within. There are gossips leaning over the lower 
halves of the Dutch-like doors that are open above 
to flood the house-interior with the white light of 




AN OLD SPANISH FORT WAS ON THIS POINT 



the sun; and how the limber tongues wag! Red- 
cheeked lasses go to and fro over the white stones of 
the street as they carry the day's wash to the stream, 
the bare and rounded ankles showing their dainty 
and suggestive fulness below their short petticoats of 
brightly-colored stuffs. Bursts of merry banter, of 
ebullient laughter break the soft winds, fresh with 
the salty flavors of the sea, into ripples of joyous 
sound. With the wind one gets the wholesome 
odors from the fish-stages that cover the gentle 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 209 

incline to the sea where the men are busy with its 
harvest. The sailors from the ships are ashore to 
saunter up and down these byways to and from the 
tavern, and boldly ogle the young women, or beguile 
them with their tales of strange things they have 
seen as they have sailed. 

So the days go. The gossips wag their heads and 
maunder of things past and things to come. Upon 
and through it all runs the murmuring song of the 
grinding-mill as the heavy burr-stones whir and the 
miller takes his toll, or fumbles at the warm meal 
with thumb and finger. Anon the mill-wheel goes 
to sleep in the shadow of the gray gable as the sun 
goes down the westering sky, and the miller, as dusty 
and gray as his sheltering gable, sits him down in 
his mill-door to drowse and dream when the grinding 
is done. Who knows but he had a lap-stone like 
that of Keezar's wrought at the same time by old 
Agrippa in the magic tower of Nettisheim, and was 
watching the husbandman plowing these Pemaquid 
fields to stop his team mid-furrow to dream, as the 
miller dreamed, not of things that were, but of 
things to come, and to see visions as did he as he held 
his lap-stone to the sun. Mayhap, somewhere, in 
Little Pemaquid River, 

"There in the deep dark water, 
The magic stone lies still, 
Under the leaning willows 
In the shadow of the hill," 

the miller's lap-stone waits the hand of some modern 



210 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

wizard who shall fish it out, so one may have a look 
at the days when 

"the barley-winnower, holding with pain 
Aloft in waiting his chaff and his grain, 
Joyfully welcomes the far-off breeze." 

Out in the harbor the ships, the quaint craft of an 
unknown century, loll and yaw on the lazy tide, 
and the gulls dip and wheel and whistle as they have 
ever done since the days of sea-gulls. The sails of 
the vessels make patches of strange color against the 
sky, or the low rim of verdure on the west shore of 
the bay, or hang dun-hued as the shadows gather 
to finally fade away altogether in the slow twilight. 
They come and go, like the migratory birds of far 
countries, and the harbor is thick-set with tapering 
spars and masts; or some other day, only the green 
waters look up to the sun. 

And ever the smokes blow up, or blow down, which- 
ever way the vagrant winds set, and the ivy-leaves 
tap like uneasy spirits at the latticed windows, or 
whisper a rune of Nature to the birds that seek their 
sheltering shadows for a stray drop of dew that the 
sun has forgotten. The orioles glow in the sun like 
living coals and whistle from the maples a peculiarly 
flute-like note, while the robins drop into the grass 
with a low call of delight, and a moment later scurry 
away to the home nests with their treasure. The 
girls laugh as only girls can laugh to rival the tree- 
dwellers about the village, and the gossips chatter 
like so many magpies, all the while the streets lie 
asleep in the sun, — a bit of the sweet old England 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQU1D 211 

Birket Foster was wont to paint with a few bits of 
dry color, a bit of sable, and a cup of water, and 
more genius. 

The huge overshot wheel that makes the burr- 
stones go round and round in their tireless grinding, 
turns slowly, or not at all, to join the drowsings of the 
miller while the water drips idly from the wide 
paddles into the alder shadows of the stream, that 
singing along its hoyden way, runs ever to the shore 




NEW HARBOR 



of the bay. The tanner mid his fragrant vats 
fleshes his hides, and the hammer of the smith plays 
a noisy tattoo on the ruddy brands, and the potter 
moulds his pipes of clay. So the days go, tremulous 
with the songs of birds and the laughter of the 
rippling stream, the lapping of the waters on the 
shore, the shouts of the children at play, and the 
hails of the sailors across the bay. And this was 
the Pemaquid of days the which no living voice or 
written word recalls, the dead story of an ancient 



212 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

English village which Time has mantled with the 
verdures of earth. Goldsmith may have seen this 
old village as in a vision, to have painted as he did, 

" Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain;" 

but what a strange old place it would be in these 
modern days. 

Shurt was an active man, and under his influence 
a coast trade was extended to Massachusetts Bay. 
About this time the considerable population, the 
value of the foreign trade, and the accumulation 
of property required a defense of something more 
formidable than a storehouse wall of wood, and a 
fort was built. We have no record of the character 
of its construction, but, doubtless, it was a heap of 
logs laid up with some similitude of solidity, and for 
the times might be considered a comparatively safe 
shelter from attack. Shurt's business record, unlike 
Weston's, was a clean one. The policy of the 
eastern settler was that of the Pilgrims, which was 
the observance of a perfect fidelity to all their 
promises to the Indian, but their chief source of 
alarm was to have its breeding-place among the 
glooms of the Penobscot, where the Tarratine, who 
was about to become the protege of the French, 
held lordly sway. The Tarratines were a warlike 
race, and they were hostile to the tribes south of the 
Saco and to westward. At this time, however, 
and Pemaquid was a part of the domain of their 
Bashaba, the Tarratines were inclined to make 
friendly advances to the English. Their confidence 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 213 

in Shurt was implicit, as is evidenced by an incident 
which took place in the summer of 1631. 

It was a hostile raid made by a party of a hundred 
or more Tarratines upon the Ipswich Indians. A 
midnight assault was made on the wigwam of the 
Ipswich Sagamore, and in the melee the Sagamore's 
squaw was spirited away and brought captive to 
Pemaquid. It was shortly after, that Shurt had 
occasion to send his agent in to Massachusetts Bay, 
and to him was committed the captive wife, for 
whom a ransom was to be demanded. The mission 
was accomplished successfully, and Shurt's reputa- 
tion among his Indian neighbors was established. 

Here at Pemaquid was sprouted one of the germs 
that grew into a thriving plant of discord at home. 
From the first the Northern or Plymouth Company 
had coveted the monopoly of the New England 
fisheries within the bounds of their patent, and 
which extended originally from the Merrimac to the 
Kennebec. The result was a bitter faction in Eng- 
land which turned the people against the King and 
involved men who should have been co-ad jutors 
and friends in enmities. These attempts at monopoly 
fomented many a petty quarrel on the fishing- 
grounds, as in England it involved others in political 
controversy. King James was especially irate and 
he even mutilated the records when Parliament had 
been especially determined in its opposition to the 
granting of an exclusive monopoly to Gorges. 

But the Plymouth Council under the countenance 
of the Crown issued its patents, and the promoters 



214 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

came over with their contingents of settlers. Vines 
had settled at the mouth of the Saco along with 
Bonython and Lewis; John Winter was building up 
a considerable trade at Richmond's Island, George 
Cleeve had moved to Casco Neck, and Purchas had 
built his cabin at New Meadows River. At the 
Isles of Shoals and Kittery, and at Cape Ann were 
considerable settlements. It was about this time, 
1630, that Winthrop, Saltonstall, Bradstreet and 
Dudley came over in the Arabella. Winthrop left 
the ship at Cape Ann, and with much the same 
executive capabilities as Shurt, he took up Con- 
ant's burden, and Cape Ann fell under the magic 
spell that had given to Pemaquid its importance; 
and as one writer says, it "expanded into the most 
important colony on the whole coast." 

The interests of Aldworth and Elbridge, first 
concentered upon Monhegan, were extended to 
Pemaquid, and, as their grant from the Northern 
Company carried with it the royal prestige, they 
were fairly authorized to protect their colonial 
settlement with such defense as occurred to them, 
and it was upon the point of land at the mouth of 
the Little Pemaquid River, the site of these remains 
of paved streets and forges and tannery vats and 
where the seventy house-cellars were counted arow, 
that they located their settlement. It was about 
the time of the treaty of St. Germain, when Charles 
gave up to France the discoveries of its English 
navigators, including the indefinite areas supposed 
to be located within the boundaries of Arcadia, and 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 215 

which the French were inclined to stretch to the 
Kennebec, a most wanton lapse from his royal duty, 
and which was one of the many acts that made the 
Stuarts' tenure much shorter than it would have 
been had royalty not been so reckless of the honor of 
English achievement. 

Aldworth and Elbridge built a fort on this south- 
ern point of the inner bay, and it may be the ruins 
of that fort that have been so many times the object 




PEMAQUID REACH, FIELD OF THE THREE HUNDRED CELLARS 



of antiquarian curiosity. It would seem, if these 
old mural relics had been there as the remnant of 
some prior civilization, mention would have been 
made of it; and it is not impossible that they may 
have been the industrial people of ancient Fort 
Point. After St. Germain, the French pushed their 
occupation rapidly in the direction of the Pemaquid 
out-post; for, out-post it soon became, and it was 
to stand the brunt of the wave of the French inter- 
ests. It was necessary, considering the fact that 
Pemaquid was within the debatable area of Arcadia, 



216 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

that this about to become the scene of the colonial 
jealousies growing out of the Treaty of St. Germain, 
should take on the importance of a military post. 
It soon took that rank, and was one of the history- 
makers of the period; and, what time it was not 
under the domination of the English, the French 
occupied it. It early became a bone of contention 
it was more than once amenable to the fortunes of 
war. 

It was in the year 1632 that Shurt sailed west 
down the coast with a cargo of merchandise which 
has been estimated as of about one thousand dollars 
value. All went well until he reached the mouth 
of the Piscataqua. He left his vessel, whether to 
make a neighborly call on Wannerton at Strawberry 
Bank, or Neale at Little Harbor, it is not certain, 
but he was away from his vessel. In his absence 
one of the crew came too near the powder barrel, 
and immediately there was a mighty explosion, and 
the devastation was general and which included the 
the life of the careless smoker. Winthrop, with 
caustic pen, for he always kept a bottle of caustic 
on his writing table when the doings of the colonies 
east of the Piscataqua were to be written of, says, 
"some in the boat were so drunk and fast asleep as 
they did not awake with the noise!" Winthrop 
throws some light on the facilities of the Pemaquid 
people, or rather their lack of facilities. He men- 
tions the arrival of Captain Cammock at Boston 
with a ship-load of sixteen hogsheads of corn for 
grinding there, at the Wind-mill. The Pemaquid 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 217 

folk made their bread from meal from England, 
or grain, and which was taken to Boston to be 
ground, and which meant a round trip of two weeks. 
About this time one Allerton, who had been 
pushed headlong without the pale of the Massachu- 
setts colony, sailed down the coast of Maine with a 
duplicate of the crew of the scheming Weston, and 
from the Kennebec to Machias, established trading- 
houses wherever he thought there was opportunity 




■^mm 



for trade. Not long after his establishment of his 
trading-post at the Penobscot, the French swooped 
down upon him and from whom they carried away 
everything portable. It was probably on this raid 
that the French captured the ship of Dixey Bull, 
the famous Pirate of Pemaquid. 

This Bull was a noted character. The history of 
Dixey Bull is associated with this country in 1631. 
He was in the employ of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, 
Samuel Maverick and one Seth Bull who is described 
as " Citizen and Skinner of London." Associated with 
these, was one John Bull, the son of the former Seth, 



218 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

and who may have been the original English John. 
There was a considerable company of associates 
and they were interested in a like considerable tract 
of land on the Agamenticus River. Dixey Bull did 
not adjust himself to the labors of a colonist, but 
being of a roving disposition, took to the sea and the 
coast trade. Unlike Captain Kidd, who was some- 
thing of a protege of the earl of Bellomont some thirty 
years later, he made the coasts and the waters most 
familiar to him, the active scenes of his buccaneering. 
After his mishap with the French off the Penobscot 
he hoisted the black flag, and plundered friend and 
foe alike. Prince mentions Bull in his piratical 
career; and tells it after Captain Clapp. He says, 
" There arose up against us one Bull, who went to 
the eastward trading, turned pirate, took a vessel or 
two, plundered some of the planters thereabouts, and 
intended to return into the bay and do mischief to 
our magistrates here in Dorchester and other places. 
But as they were weighing anchor (at Pemaquid) 
one Mr. Short (Shurt) his men shot from the shore 
and struck the principal actor dead, and the rest were 
filled with fear and horror. These men fled east- 
wards, and Bull got into England ; but God destroyed 
this wretched man. Thus the Lord saved us from 
their wicked device against us." An old crest of the 
Bull family shows a black bull, bearing a scroll in 
its mouth. The inscription on the scroll is "God is 
Cortues." 

Dixey Bull was apprehended at the suggestion of 
Bellomont and was hanged at Tyburn. Thus ended 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 219 

the first pirate of the colonies, nor was he much of a 
pirate, after all, as pirates go. 

The Pirate of Pemaquid after a fashion, was some- 
thing of a freebooter, however, notwithstanding his 
lack of tutelage and his small vessel, likewise the 
small domain in which he exercised his reprehensible 
craft. No description of his ship has come down, but 
one recalls the pirate tales with which, as a boy, he 
was wont to infuse some stirring of the pulse into the 
otherwise uneventful round of his boyish occupa- 
tions, and has not to strain the imagination to see that 
rakish hull of Dixey Bull's, long, black, and laying 
low upon the water, like a sea-fowl, sailing like the 
wind to skim the foam from the crested waters, a ship 
with a phantom helm and a like phantom keel to 
leap the reefs with a derisive hail to the pursuer. 
But Bull was no be-whiskered, blood-thirsty bandit of 
the Carribeans, but a ruddy-faced Englishman whose 
career was not so brilliant or extensive as that of the 
later Kidd whose coveted treasures have been hunted 
for on Jewell's Island, as well as in other localities, 
among which may be mentioned the group of islands 
off the mouth of the Piscataqua which in the earlier 
days offered a safe retreat from observation, especially 
after Parson Tuck and the islanders had removed to 
the mainland. Low sailed these waters as did Argall, 
though the latter had a royal license to play high- 
wayman of the ocean. After Kidd, came Hawkins 
and Pound who scoured these coasts in 1689, but the 
latter was vanquished off Wood's Hole by Captain 
Pease after a fierce combat, in which Pease lost his 



220 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

life. At Appledore the ghost of one of Kidd's crew 
was wont to show itself when strangers came after 
the buried treasure, and around its bare neck could 
be distinguished the livid stain of the rope which 
held him in mid-air above the ledge of Nix's Mate, a 
small heap of rock in Boston Harbor, still distinguished 
by a monument; but this ghost of "Old Bab" is said 
to haunt Appledore even yet. 

Phillips was a noted buccaneer along the coast, and 
was wont to recruit his crew from among the luck- 
less fishermen who fell into his rough clutches, and 
whose adventures went to swell the annals of piracy. 
"Bill" Fly was a famous rover of the seas, but was 
finally overhauled and captured, and had his funeral 
sermon preached to him by Dr. Colman in Old Brattle 
Street Church, Boston. When he was about to be 
taken to the scene of his execution, he leaped into the 
cart with the agility of a boy, a bouquet of flowers 
in his hand, and there he rode as if he were on the 
deck of his ship, bowing and grimacing to the curious 
onlookers as if he had no concern over his fate. The 
chain of uninhabited islands, the many unknown 
inlets, secluded bays and forest-bound inlets with 
which the coast east of Casco abounded, afforded safe 
haunts for these corsairs, and it is upon the adjacent 
islands that they are supposed to have buried the 
ill-gotten riches of their indiscriminate depredations. 
The inner recesses of Casco Bay are supposed to have 
been their most frequent hiding-places, and the 
traditions of Jewell's Island are many, one of which 
is colored with a story of tragedy of a Canadian who 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD® PEMAQUID 221 

came there and began to dig about the roots of an old 
tree, and that was the last that was ever seen of him. 
The tradition is that he was discovered at his task by 
an occupant of the island and was murdered, his 
slayer taking the treasure. The old house is still 
shown where the murderer lived and died, a curious 
old affair with a subterranean passage that leads out 
into the shadows of the cove that indents the island 
shore. It may have been the scene of many a 




OLD DAM, McCAFFREY'S CREEK 

smuggling exploit, for smuggling was a trade carried 
on long after the pirates were driven from the seas, 
and many a Dirck Hatteraick has not unlikely passed 
within its dripping shadows. 

There is a tradition of Blackbeard Teach who 
roamed these waters in the days of the early settle- 
ments, and who was supposed to have hidden immense 
treasure upon one island and another up and down 
the coast. One recalls the story of Haley's ingots 
which are reputed to have been dug up and shared 



222 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

by the islanders of the shoals. He sailed over all the 
seas, and one time as his ship was moored against 
the coast of Scotland, like a predatory beast lying in 
wait for its prey, he was surprised to see making 
its way toward the ship, a boat containing a single 
individual. As the stranger mounted the monkey- 
rail he accosted the captain, and together, they went 
into the cabin. Later they came on deck where 
Teach introduced the stranger to his crew as a worthy 
comrade. Not long after the rich merchantman for 
which Teach was waiting hove in sight. The sails 
were immediately run up, and the merchantman 
gave battle. The stranger made himself especially 
useful, and the crew of the merchantman being 
overcome, he was given the captaincy of the captured 
vessel. 

He soon attained such eminence in his piratical dep- 
redations that his robber crew gave him unreserved 
allegiance. He scoured the seas, far and wide, 
and amassed great riches, to finally return to that 
part of the Scotland coast where he first met Teach. 
Here he landed and not for long ; for, he was soon dis- 
covered by his boat's crew hurrying down the sands 
with a woman thrown against his shoulder. Reach- 
ing the ship, sail was made for New England; and 
running into the shelter of the Isles of Shoals, he 
dropped anchor. It was here the buccaneers buried 
their wealth. The captain sought a secluded island 
for the hiding of his share, and his Scottish flower 
kept him company; but this idyllic pastime was to be 
interrupted. On the far horizon was the glint of a 



ys ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 223 

white sail. It came nearer, always nearer, as if 
heading direct for the island. Then the pirate 
ship was cleared for action. The woman swore that 
she would keep the treasure safe from mortal hands 
until he had returned, if it were not until the last 
trump should sound. Putting to sea, he discerned 
the approaching ship to be a government vessel in 
quest of him and his crew. It was a great battle; 
and, with the silencing of the pirate's guns, the strange 
ship grappled to carry the pirate by boarding. At 
once there was a mighty upheaval of the pirate deck. 
The desperate buccaneer had thrown a match into 
the power magazine and the air was filled with the 
remnants of the pirate ship. Almost the same havoc 
was made on the foe, for both ships went at once to 
the bottom, and such as were unhurt got to shore, 
where half-starved and overcome with the inclem- 
ency of the season never one lived to tell the tale of 
their disaster. Over on White Island the stately 
apparition of a beautiful woman, her hair of the color 
of the breaking dawn, is seen sometimes when the 
mists wreath the ragged shores with a sunlit-glamour. 
She flits along the shore, or haunts some jutting rock, 
looking, always looking out to seaward for the 
return of her pirate lover. There are few islands 
that have not some legend of the old free-booting 
days hanging to their skirts, and which have whiled 
away many an evening fire upon the fisherman's 
hearth. 

Had Bull sailed away to foreign seas his career 
might not have been so suddenly cut short. He 



224 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

associated with him some choice spirits most of them 
well-known up and down the coast, and bore away 
to eastward to levy tribute upon whatever might lie 
across his prow, — English, or French, it mattered not, 
so long as they promised plunder. He harried the 
coast as if his ship were a hatchel. He almost combed 
it clean of its coasting craft, for what he did not 
capture, he drove to cover, and for a time he reigned 
king at sea. He captured several vessels and suc- 
ceeded in making himself very much feared, so much 
so, that the active interference of the western colonies 
was asked to lend a hand in ridding these waters of 
the troublesome fellow. 

The business at sea got rather, slack, and Bull 
bethought himself of Pemaquid. He turned the 
prow of his pirate craft shoreward to run up into 
the harbor of Pemaquid where he dropped anchor, 
and in a short time had looted the fort, but not with- 
out some resistance. Not satisfied with despoiling 
Shurt of his goods, he likewise plundered the planters, 
and then made off in his shallop to his ship, where 
he up with his anchor and sailed away, as he came, 
with the wind. It was at this time that the inci- 
dent narrated by Prince occurred when a lucky shot 
from the shore killed one of Bull's men. The fame 
of this exploit flew on the winds, and one writer says, 
" perils did abound as thick as thought could make 
them." 

Over at Piscataqua Neale was bestirring himself, 
aided by Hilton and together, they "sent out all 
the forces they could make against the pirates, — 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 225 

four pinnaces and shallops and about forty men, who 
arriving at Pemaquid, were there wind-bound for 
about three weeks." This was the first naval squad- 
ron to patrol the coast, but hunting for Bull on the 
wide seas was looking for a needle in a haystack. 
Bull kept clear of this formidable demonstration, and 
Pemaquid as well, but flew his black flag fearlessly 




MEDOMAK RIVER 



to the indifferent winds. Neale wrote to Winthrop 
for aid, but the latter did not bestir himself to much 
effect. He had a ready excuse of "the extremity of 
the snow and frost," that "hindered the making 
ready of the bark;" but he did send a messenger to 
Neale to obtain the particulars, one John Gallop, 
whose lack of celerity in performing his mission did 
much belie his name; for, the winds were propitious 
for his delay. It was over a month before he was 
able to return to Cape Ann. Neale's four vessels had 



226 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

returned from Pemaquid to Strawberry Bank by the 
early days of January, and on account of the pre- 
vailing cold the chase was given over until the 
opening days of spring. It was in May when Lieu- 
tenant Mason began his search for Dixey Bull, but 
the latter was not to be found. It was afterward 
learned that he had sailed for England. It was this 
expedition that dropped anchor at John Winter's 
fish-houses on Richmond's Island, in a belated 
fashion to seek out the perpetrators of the Bagnall 
tragedy of the previous October. It will be remem- 
bered that it was by Mason, and at this time, that 
Black Will was apprehended and strung up, mid-air, 
for the murder of Walter Bagnall. 

East of the Piscataqua the provinces were colored 
with Episcopalian tenets, and the austere Winthrop 
was not inclined to be over-zealous in lending neigh- 
borly assistance. Winthrop was no doubt even in 
those early days revolving in his mind the scheme 
of the unification of the English settlements as far 
east as the Penobscot, nor did the Puritans look 
upon the cession to France of the rich country about 
the Penobscot with much complacency, which was 
thoroughly English by occupancy, as by discovery. 
As a matter of fact, all the war ships of the time 
were licensed pirates, and it was but a question as 
to which was most likely to prevail. Winthrop was 
hardly prepared to undertake much of a sea-fight, 
and was evidently disposed to let these high-church- 
men fight their own battles and work out the problem 
of their needs according to their own ingenious 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 227 

devices. This dilatory response in the matter of 
summarily disposing of the Pirate of Pemaquid, 
was but a precursor of like slow-paced response in 
later times of need. 

Bull had an easy time of it, doubtless, anchored in 
one of the many inlets or sounds of Casco Bay, which 
in those days of sparse settlements would afford 
absolute seclusion and innumerable hiding-places. 
Wherever he might have been, he never again ap- 
peared at Pemaquid Harbor, and the settlement 
lapsed into its old-time sense of security, to be rudely 
awakened three years later by the capture of the 
Plymouth Company's fort on the Penobscot by 
D'Aulnay. The French laid claim to all the ter- 
ritory as far east as Pemaquid, and these preten- 
sions of the French were a lively menace to the 
Pemaquid settlement. Aid was asked of the Massa- 
chusetts colonists, as usual, but Bradford replied to 
them that they were wholly to blame for these 
troubles. He says in his letter the English at Pema- 
quid "fill ye Indeans with gunes and amunishtion," 
and he likewise prophesied a day of repayment. It 
came full soon. 

It was in May of this year that the Angel Gabriel 
was wrecked here, opposite the old fort; and it has 
ever been noted in the annals of the settlement as 
an irreparable disaster. For almost a century and'a 
half the seal of the Pemaquid Proprietors bore the 
device of this ship whose name has been associated 
with the sea since the first Frobisher voyages of 
1576-77-88. As one paces the deck of the huge 



228 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

ocean liners of these days, one wonders at the hardi- 
hood of the bold navigator of the days of the early 
discoveries sailing across the Atlantic in what would 
be now regarded as an under-sized schooner, and 
which were hardly more than cockle-shells, with 
two-story houses hanging over their broad sterns, 
cumbersome double-decked poops that ever seemed 
toppling into the water below. 

Shurt was a tactful man, and occupying as it were 
the neutral ground of Pemaquid, he was open to 
many perplexing questions. He seemingly disposed 
of them all to his personal advantage; for, in the 
quarrel which consumed La Tour and D'Aulnay, it 
was here they met to enjoy alike the generous and 
kindly hearth and table of the Englishman. It was 
here Richard Vines and the " inebriate Wannerton" 
found themselves under arrest by D'Aulnay. At 
the request of Shurt they were at once released. 

The years were slowly growing, but of all the 
incidents connected with the old settlement, is the 
coming hither in 1638 of a young gunsmith. His 
wife came along with him, and she in time became 
the mother of twenty-six children. This gun- 
smith came from English Bristol, and it was to fall 
to one of his sons to make his coining hither a mem- 
orable episode, for this artisan was the father of the 
boy who became Sir William Phipps. This boy 
became a ship-carpenter and went to Boston to ply 
his trade. It was there he learned the alphabet. A 
biographer of Phipps says the famous Sir William 
was born at "a despicable plantation on the river of 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 229 

Kennebec, almost the furthest village of the East- 
ern settlement of New England." 

Pemaquid had the reputation of being a some- 
what lawless community. The proprietors, with- 
out authority to enforce order and law in the settle- 
ment, were compelled to get on the best they could. 
Society could be but, after a fashion, degenerate. It 
was an inevitable result. There was little com- 




BELOW PEMAQUID FALLS 



munity of interest between the planters and prin- 
cipals of Shurt, yet who, after a manner, managed to 
maintain some semblance of obedience to the un- 
written code of necessity and upon which depended 
the existence of the colony. It was an unconscious 
preparation for the absorption of the Maine Prov- 
inces which was inevitable as well. Massachu- 
setts had no stomach for an Episcopalian, and the 
sentiment at all their gatherings political was, "No 
Lords Spiritual, or Temporal in New England," and 



230 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

their " masterly inactivity" in all matters where the 
Eastern settlements were in need of immediate aid 
was a visible expression of their indifference to their 
fate as a body politic. Winthrop, who succeeded 
Endicott, had little sympathy for Gorges or his 
interests. If ever there were Roundheads, such 
were the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. Her 
code of laws was peculiarly her own, and out of 
them grew the magnificent statehood which by the 
farthest stretch of prophetic vision they were unable 
to discern. 

But Pemaquid was prosperous, after a way. She 
raised good cattle and sold them to the Puritans, 
and the Puritans had the wherewithal to pay for 
them. She would have done better to have kept 
her cattle for her own fields, and her people as well 
from emigrating to "the Bay." If she could have 
forgotten her instinct to be always at the making 
of a trade, and had opened up wider lands, and 
depended more upon the tillage of the soil, her fame 
as a metropolitan settlement would have been 
enhanced and perpetuated. But the Indian wars 
were to come with their train of devastation, and 
the possible annihilation of the best things that might 
have been accomplished. 

In 1654 Arcadia again became English territory, 
and the birthright of the Cabots had been regained. 
This is one of the acts for which Cromwell should be 
remembered gratefully. From this began the decline 
of Pemaquid. Massachusetts became the central 
point of the New England trade, and as for Pema- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 231 

quid and the adjoining settlements, they suffered 
much of misrepresentation at the hands of the Royal 
Commissioners of a belittling sort, and they say in 
their report, "upon Shipscot river and upon Pema- 
quid, 8 or 10 miles asunder, are three small planta- 
tions belonging to his royal highnesse, the biggest of 
which hath not above thirty houses in it, and those 
very mean ones too, and spread over eight miles at 
least. These people for the most part are fisher- 
men, and never had any government among them, 
most of them are such as have fled from other places 
to avoide justice." 

Samuel Mavericke was on the Commission. He 
was a Boston man, whose reputation was somewhat 
in shreds if the Court records of Massachusetts and 
the story of Jocelyn are to be taken as having any 
weight. It was not giving to Abraham Shurt his 
deserts, to say that his settlement was comprised 
of "the worst of men." But the Commissioners so 
reported, as they did of the morals of the Isles of 
Shoals that "as many men may share in a woman as 
they do in a boat." This is not only improbable, 
but throws the light upon a scene of moral obliquity, 
that, making all allowances for the times and their 
lack of restraint, is incomprehensible, — on more 
grounds than one. It is to be admitted that there 
was foundation for criticism, — there always is 
where taverns sell rum indiscriminately, and morals 
are held to their moorings by self-interest. It would 
be the same to-day with a very small amount of 
license. The prostitute is still plying her nefarious 



232 Y^ ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQV1D 

trade in the streets of modern cities, and only the 
penalty of the law prevents immoral men and women 
from plunging deeper into the filth of their own 
making. I apprehend that the Province of Maine 
was as cleanly without the constant frown of Puritan- 
ism scrutinizing its every individual act, as was the 
witchbedight court and populace that harried poor 
old Rebecca Nourse into the hang-man's noose, or 
that piled stones on honest Giles Corey because he 
would not confess himself a wizard. 

The fifth epoch in the history of old Pemaquicl 
was marked by the grant of March 12, 1664-5 by 
Charles II. to his brother James, the Duke of York, 
of all the territory between the St. Croix River and 
Pemaquid, and which took in the Pemaquid settle- 
ment. This was made a part of the New York Patent. 
For the ten years preceding this whimsical act of 
Charles, the history of this settlement had been of 
the most uneventful character, except that the trade 
had somewhat fallen off, being attracted to the west- 
ward. The people about Massachusetts Bay were 
developing rapidly and increasing their population. 
The Puritan was steadily gaining ground, and had at 
the time of this grant taken over the Gorges Province, 
and was exercising an energetic influence in the 
direction of its affairs. Pemaquid had neither over- 
sight nor government, and it was about this time 
that the Royal Commissioners constituted Henry 
Jocelyn of Black Point, Rev. Robert Jordan of Cape 
Elizabeth, Thomas Gardner of Pemaquid, George 
Munjoy of Casco, Captain Nicholas Raynol and 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID * 233 

William Dyer of Saco, the first Court which indi- 
vidually swore allegiance to the Duke of York in 
the house of John Mason that looked out upon the 
Sheepscot River. These were the first magistrates 
of this old settlement. The Commissioners set up 
an ecclesiastical Court according to Sullivan, who 
avers this to have been the only tribunal of its kind 
here. Henry Jocelyn was the representative of this 
singular branch of the local judiciary. Doubtless it 
was to be used as a fender against the heresy of the 
Puritan, who was not without some influence in these 
parts. This is shown by the insignificant four, 
including the sole representaive of the Aldworth 
and Elbridge Patent, the heir, Mr. Thomas Elbridge, 
who appeared to take upon themselves the alle- 
giance to the Duke of York. These were from Pema- 
quid. There were none from Monhegan. This last 
grant of Charles ousted Elbridge from his manorial 
rights here, and, shorn of his influence as the sole 
proprietor of the Pemaquid lands, eight years later 
he is humbly begging the General Court to assume 
jurisdiction over the Pemaquid country. The peti- 
tion was very generally signed by the settlers at 
Kennebeek, Shipscoate, Cape Bonawagon, Pema- 
quid, Damaris Cove and Monhegan. They were 
ninety-eight in number. The General Court decided 
to " Grant the Petition provided they pay all pub- 
lick Charges especially with the rest of the inhabi- 
tants of this Colony." The Committee was com- 
posed of Edward Tyng, George Curwin and Humphrey 
Davie. This depended, however, upon the consent 



234 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

of the "hon ble majestrates Consenting," but the 
"majestrates" did not concur. 

In the following years here was uncertainty and 
discontent. It was a struggle for jurisdictional su- 
premacy between the patient, long-suffering Puritan, 
and the perversities of the dissolute Charles. The 
local sentiment inclined strongly to Massachusetts, 
and the territory had as many names as a vagrant 
dog, and as many masters, and whether one called 
himself of the Territory of the Duke of York, The 
Territory of Sagadahock, New Castle, County of 
Cornwall, or of Devonshire, it was all one and the 
same, the old settlement of Pemaquid and the lands 
adjacent. 

But stirring times were brewing. Jocelyn, with 
some inkling of the dangers existent by reason of the 
savage acquaintance with the use of fire-arms, says, 
1673, that an Indian was poor indeed, who did not 
own two guns and sufficient ammunition supplied him 
by the French. He notes as well that they were 
good shots. The Indian was to be feared. He knew 
the weak places as the strong ones ; and he knew the 
ways of the English, their cabins and their planting- 
lands. He had made himself familiar with their 
characteristics, the immediate family, and he came 
and went, the nomad of the woods that he was, as his 
inclination moved him. He was storing up the woes 
of his race which had for forty years been accum- 
ulating, — the prophecy of Bradford was about to 
be fulfilled. 

The Duke of York had been indifferent to his New 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 235 

England possessions, so much so, that it was a matter, 
apparently, of total neglect. Almost a decade had 
passed, in which time Pemaquid had, like a ship 
moored mid-stream, swung with the tide. Massa- 
chusetts had not been idle, nor had this desirable 
country of the Kennebec been forgotten. It was in 
1672 that a letter came from the Duke's agent in New 
York to the Pemaquid folk inquiring of them what 
kind of government would be most pleasing to them 
and as well consistent with their civil administration. 
It is doubtful from the records whether after the com- 
ing of Brown in 1623 a religious service of any sort 
was held at Pemaquid. From the absence of such, 
it was an anomalous community, if one compares it 
with its neighbors. But the royal agent in New 
York was not allowed to carry out his plan of chris- 
tianizing Pemaquid, as soon after, New York fell 
under the domination of the Dutch, and the " pious 
Lovelace fled to England." 

On July 22, 1674, Massachusetts got her first foot- 
hold on the soil of Pemaquid by holding a Court 
there. Pemaquid was at last within the Puritan 
fold, and the country eastward from Pemaquid was 
dubbed the County of Devon. Its first judges were 
Major Thomas Clark, Humphrey Davy, Richard Col- 
lecott and Thomas Gardiner. The latter was ap- 
pointed Treasurer; Richard Oliver of Monhegan was 
Clerk of Courts, and constables were appointed as 
well. Thus was established the first orderly ma- 
chinery of government at Pemaquid. 

Following this, came the appointment of Major 



236 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Edmund Andros as Governor of the territory lying 
between the Kennebec and the St. Croix. This was 
the first day of July, 1674, but Massachusetts con- 
tinued to exercise jurisdiction over the Pemaquid 
country, and in May of 1675 Captain Thomas Lake 
and some others were appointed to hold courts in this 
section, as heretofore, and in 1676 their commissions 
were renewed. 



-jtr (SP^rMf) 






cJj^JL^ <%~/- 




The jealousies of the aborigine were about to take 
on an eventful and tragic reality. A dozen years 
before, specks had appeared above the horizon of the 
size of a man's hand, but they had faded into the 
blue of the sky which kept to its accustomed serenity. 
There were subtle hints in the silent, furtive look of 
the savage as he found his way over the hospitable 
threshold of the settler, and louder whisperings of 
tragedy in his absence from his accustomed haunts, 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 237 

but still the settler slept on under the slumberous 
monody of the overshadowing pines. His English 
stolidity waited for the blow that was to lay his 
cabin in ashes, disperse his herds among the wilder- 
nesses that hemmed in his domain, carry his wife and 
children over the trail to Canada, or leave them slain 
under the shadows of their own roofs, a prey for the 
wolves that followed after, the scavengers of the 
woods. This was to be fruit of the French dominancy 
to the eastward, and which might be well charged to 
the whiffling Charles, whose Treaty of Breda, 1667, 
was even more disastrous than that of St. Germain. 
The creed of the Jesuit was the extirpation of the 
English from New England. The ambition of the 
French was to possess the country as far south as 
New York, and all means, even to the setting on to 
the English the murderous dogs of savages which 
were kennelled at Castine's Parish of La Famille, and 
at Norridgewock under the tutelage of the Druil- 
lettes. Here were the nurseries of the Devil's broth 
from which in 1690 the English from Pemaquicl to 
York were to sup their fill. In the Indian troubles 
of 1676 the inroads upon the English were mostly 
from the savage domiciled in the western part of the 
Province. Indian troubles were threatened about 
Plymouth and warnings conveyed to the settlements 
east of the Piscataqua and as far as the Kennebec; 
but it was not until the spring of the following year 
when one Laughton from Piscataqua lured some 
savages to his ship, captured them and sailed away 
to sell them into slavery. The savages laid this 



238 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

outrage at the door of Pemaquid. It had happened 
that a Pemaquid settler had warned the Indians of 
Laughton's design against them, and, in that way, 
they had associated their quarrel on that score with 
the settlers of Pemaquid. The savage found the 
settler an easy prey. Hubbard says, "those who 
were so violent against the Indians in their discourse, 
would not be persuaded upon any terms, then, or 
afterwards, to go out and fight against the Indians 
in an orderly way; as appeared both by their security 
in not standing better upon their guard, and by their 
sudden flight afterward, running away like a flock 
of sheep at the barking of any little dog." 

Since the war of King Philip the English were for- 
bidden to furnish the Indian arms or ammunition, and 
it became a serious query with the Indian as to how 
he should provide for his hunger. The bow and 
arrow were obsolete, and their use forgotten. The 
Indians "asked what they should do for powder and 
shot, when they had eaten up their Indian corn; 
what they should do for the winter, for their hunting 
voyages; asking withall, whether the English would 
have them dy, or leave their country, and go all over 
to the French? " 

Nor had the Indians forgotten the Hunt kid- 
napping. It had been handed down as a tradition, 
and as the council-fires were lighted it went from 
mouth to mouth. What fateful circles those were 
of the silent savages about those fires where were 
settled the fates of one settler and another who had 
been guilty of some overt act of injustice to the red 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 239 

man, or some fancied slight! What a picture was 
amid the deeps of the wilderness when the glooms 
of night had settled upon the forest, with the leaping 
fire and its smokes swirling up into the dusk of the 
dense hemlock tops, and the tiny blades of lighted 
sparks mounting and soaring away into the opaque 
blackness that hovered, like the shadow of a huge 
wing, everywhere outside that mystic ring of 
savagery! One watches the pipe as it goes from 
mouth to mouth, a species of wireless telegraphy 
by which each mind is wrought in unison with the 
wild words of the Sachem; and then these painted 
children of the woods are on their feet and the war- 
dance begins and the wierd song of vengeance echoes 
through the woodland aisles. Then, as the fire goes 
down the savage mummery is over and silence comes 
again, unless the wind has risen to set the leaves 
a-tremble. The earless woods murmur their low 
speech as the pow-wow is dissolved to lose itself 
within the huddled lodges, and the forsaken fire 
betrays but a noiseless wavering thread of smoke, a 
pale strand of fibreless yarn which is being wound 
upon the bobbin of the winds that touch the tops of 
the trees but lightly and with wandering footstep. 
The embers burst apart and a baleful, blood-red 
gleam shows through the graying ashes. A nearby 
owl hoots ominously, and far off, the wolves startle 
the silences; a deer breaks the obscurity to leap like 
a shadow over the smoking brands, and with a single 
footfall is gone. 
As the summer of 1676 ripened, the mutterings of the 



240 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

coming storm became more ominous. It broke upon 
the unsuspecting settlers at Black Point to the south- 
ward, and then it swept eastward over Casco Neck. 
This was very shortly after the raid upon the lone 
cabin of Thomas Purchas at Pegypscot. This was 
in the early part of September. At that time the 
Neck settlement comprised about forty families whose 
homes were somewhat scattered, by which reason 
they became an easy prey to the predatory savage. 
Shortly after the pillaging of the Purchas cabin, some 
twenty-five planters of the Neck sailed down to the 
northern extremity of the Bay to gather corn. But 
that was not their entire errand, for rumors of the 
attack upon the Jocelyn settlement had reached them, 
and they had their guns along. While they were 
engaged about the harvesting of their yellow acres 
they espied a trio of savages near one of the cabins 
by the water-side whom they attempted to capture, 
but with the result that one of the Indians was shot, 
another wounded, while the third one got away. 

Then it came their turn to run, for they were 
immediately attacked by the Indians in force and 
compelled to take to their vessel with the loss of 
several of their men and two boat-loads of corn. It 
was an untoward event, and may be considered the 
opening of the conflict which was to be waged for 
the next seventy-five years after a desultory fashion. 
It had the result to strip the last shred of restraint 
from the savage desire for vengeance; for, from that, 
on to the falling of the snows of winter, the Indian 
wreaked his atrocities with untempered cruelty 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 241 

upon the isolate and defenseless settler from Pema-» 
quid to Saco, the somewhat extensive and unpro- 
tected frontier of which was open to their continuous 
and savage forays. 

It was about a week after that, that the savages 
came down upon Casco Neck. It was a quiet after- 
noon and the sun had just begun to paint the woods 
with the approaching brilliancy of the October 
days. The sun was getting down into the west, 
while the waters of the bay made numberless mirrors 
for the shore and its picturesque nooks and corners 
while the charm of a cloudless sky, 

"Glorious as if a glimpse were given 
Within the western gates of heaven," 

lent its drowsy influence to the scene. About the 
cabin doors were the soft-falling shadows, and 
beyond, was the glamour of the sea, 

Where the smokes of Abenake 

Through the gusty inlets blew; 
Up and down the hillocked waters 

Danced the fisher's bark canoe; 
While along the slopes and clearings 

Where Presumpscot's stream is born, 
Dusky squaw and laughing maiden 

Cut and shock the golden corn, — 

the Happy Hunting-grounds where Indian hunters 
glean 

their winter's store of game, 
And the council-fires of Squano 
Gild the hemlocks with their flame. 



242 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Lightly-sped, o'er wind-swept ledges, 

Flecked with lichen, soft and brown, 
Drift the fire-weed's spikes of crimson, — 

Through the birches sifting down, — 
Sail in fleets the wanton thistles 

Where the sunlight leaves its trail 
And its silver shuttles idly 

Weave, of summer mists, its veil. 

Over miles of coves and beaches, 

Where, to eastward, far away, 
Lordly Castin's smoky wigwam 

Guards Penobscot's widening bay, 
And the fogs of Desert's waters 

Hide the mountains, bald and gray, 
That o'erlook Ste. Sauveur's Mission 

And the grave of brave Du Thet. 

It was on just such a picture as this that these 
settlers of Casco Neck looked when the smokes of 
Thomas Wakeley's cabin, with a burst of flame, 
swirled upward into the still air, a silent yet terribly 
ominous prophecy written across the sky, and which 
lent a ruddy glow to the waters of Presumpscot 
Falls. Here the savages wreaked their vengeance 
upon the four eldest of the family and three of the 
children, one only, the girl Elizabeth, being carried 
into captivity, whose good fortune it was a few 
months later, to be delivered to Major Walclron 
at Dover, to become the wife of Richard Scamman. 
What a tale was hers to tell by the cabin hearth, 
her children clustered about listening with bated 
breath after the night shadows had fallen! Mather 
mentions the elder Wakeley as one "who came into 
New England for the sake of the gospel." Here 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 243 



was consummated the first tragedy upon Casco Bay. 
The following day Lieutenant George Ingersoll 
discovered the up-bent smokes of the smouldering 
ruins, and with a small file of soldiers made his way 
hither only to look upon the half-charred bodies of 
the victims of this savage attack. The savages 
had withdrawn to their haunts. 




SHELL HEAPS, DAMARISCOTTA 



The Indians next appeared at Saco where they 
burned the house of Captain Richard Bonython, to 
almost simultaneously attack the house of Lieuten- 
ant Ingersoll at the Neck which was burned, and 
at which time he was killed. It was this same day 
that the house of the Rev. Robert Jordan some- 
what farther southward on Cape Elizabeth, was 
destroyed, but its inmates succeeded in getting away 



244 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

safely. The incursions of this year were made upon 
the settlers who lived between the Presumpscot and 
the Saco. In early December the snows had choked 
the woodlands with impassable depths. The cold 
became intense, and -these acts of savage violence 
ceased. The Indian Sachem, Squando, sued for 
peace and the captives were released. 

This interregnum of doubtful peace was the after- 
math of the fateful council-fire. 

With the mid-summer of 1676 was ushered in 
another series of onslaughts upon the settler. As 
before, Casco Neck was the first place visited. This 
time it was the cabin of Anthony Brackett which 
stood on the edge of what is now the beautiful Park 
of Deering Woods. This was the 11th of August. 
Brackett and his wife were made captives and with 
their five children and their negro servant were 
carried away. It was here at this time, that Nathan- 
iel Mitton, making resistance, was killed. Mitton 
was the only son of Michael who married Elizabeth 
Cleeve, and with him the name was extinct. From 
the Brackett Farm which comprised the lands about 
Back Cove, and which have become historic ground, 
the savages trailed across country to the northward 
to the Presumpscot, the scene of the Wakeley tragedy 
of the summer previous, where they killed Robert 
Corbin and his two hired men as they were making 
hay afield. Taking Corbin's wife captive along 
with three or four others, among whom was the 
town constable, James Ross, they began attacks 
upon the houses of other settlers, but taking alarm 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 245 

at the reports of the guns, the settlers fled to the 
block-house. From here, the Indians made a de- 
scent upon the Neck killing John Munjoy and Isaac 
Wakeley, but the settlers, mostly, gained the shelter 
of Munjoy's garrison-house. It was from this place 
of refuge that the settlers went the next day down 
the harbor to James Andrews' Island, and it was 
from that place that George Burroughs, the Wizard 
of Casco, wrote to Henry Jocelyn at Black Point for 
assistance. In their haste a store of ammunition was 
forgotten, but after nightfall the venture was made 
to bring it off to the island. It had, fortunately, 
been overlooked by the savages, so the settlers 
managed to bring away a barrel of powder along 
with quite a quantity which had been stored in a 
chest at the house of one Wallis. 

Finding their prey likely to escape, most of the 
Neck settlers having escaped to the island, the 
Indians divided their party, a portion of which went 
to the eastward, where, after two days, they had 
made a raid upon Arrowsic. 

"Quiet and calm, without a fear 
Of danger darkly lurking near, 
The weary laborer left his plough, — 
The milkmaid carolled by her cow, — 
From cottage door and household hearth 
Rose songs of praises, or tones of mirth. 
At length the murmur died away, 
And silence on that village lay, — 
So slept Pompeii, — " 

The little river of Pemaquid kept the even tenor 
of its song, the drowsy shadows lurked unawakened 



246 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQU1D 

along its marge, and the same summer silences that 

haunted these Pemaquid waters, kept the tale of the 

hours at the adjoining settlements of New Harbor, 

Corbin's Sound and Windgin's. So thorough were 

the savage plans for a simultaneous attack on these 

four settlements, that all were aflame at the same 

time, when 

"smote the Indian tomahawk 
On crashing door and shattering lock, — 
Then rang the rifle-shot, — and then 
The shrill death-scream of stricken men, — 
Sank the red axe in woman's brain, 
And childhood's cry arose in vain, — 
Bursting through roof and window came 
Red and fast, the kindled flame," 

and the labors of a half-century were swept away. 
The storm had come and gone. Only 

"the thick and sullen smoke 
From smouldering ruins slowly broke ; 
And on the greensward many a stain," 

were left. Of all its stir and village life of two 
hours before not a vestige remained, and Pemaquid 
was desolate, its refugees finding their safety among 
the settlements to the south of the Piscataqua, in 
Massachusetts or New York. At this time Pema- 
quid was the metropolis of New England, a flourish- 
ing and prosperous settlement on the eastern fron- 
tier. It was at this time that the attention of the 
wily and scheming Andros was directed to the Pema- 
quid country in the alleged interest of the Duke of 
York. The Puritans were active in assembling a 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 247 

force adequate to the task of reclaiming this eastern 
territory from the desolation which had settled over 
it and a fleet of vessels was fitted out, and manned 
largely by the settlers from those parts. The Puri- 
tan policy of the latter part of 1676 is well indicated 
by the reply to the Governor of New York, Andros, 
of October 12th, of that year: 

"In answer to a motion made by the Governor of 
New York, who hath sent his sloope to transport 
sundry of the inhabitants that are fled from to these 
townes from the merciless cruelty of the enemy in 
the easterne parts, this Court doth declare, that as 
they may not justify the act of sundry of the above- 
said inhabitants, who have in a very dishonorable 
manner, forsaken those places that might with meet 
care been kept out of the enemies hands, so they 
cannot countenance or incourage the motion made 
by the Governor of Yorke, the tendency thereof 
being apparently for the damage of his Majestie's 
interest in those parts, and quitting the same to be 
a prey, not only to the Indians, but also to the 
French, who are said by themselves to be their abet- 
tors in the depopulation there made, but doe judge 
it farr more conducible to his majestie's interest that 
with one shoulder all his majestie's subjects in these 
plantations doe joyne in driving the enemy thence, 
and for that end that all meete endeavors be used 
to engage the Mohawks, or other Indians, friends to 
the English, for their help and assistance therein." 

To secure the ends outlined in the above answer, 
the Massachusetts Bay colony "ordered away with 



248 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

all speede one hundred and forty men, with pro- 
visions, amunition and clothes, to Captain Hathorne, 
for the security of what is remaining in Yorkshire, 
and, if possible, to annoy the enemy in their quar- 
ters, " and Major General Dennison was given the 
command of the troops impressed to act " against the 
incursions of the common enemy in those eastern 
plantations." This prompt action on the part of the 
Massachusetts colony was imperative for the reason 
that little dependance was to be placed upon Andros 
whose mal-administrations, tergiversations and Mun- 
chausen inventions were in a line with the neglect 
practised by James Stuart toward the dukedom of 
this Pemaquid country, and his manifest sympathy 
with the French whose foothold in Canada had been 
obtained through the puerile policy of his family. 
It was Papist against Puritan, and it was directly 
charged to Andros that the hostile savages had been 
supplied with the munitions of war from Albany to 
be used in the destruction of the Massachusetts 
settler. Andros made vehement denial, but stands 
convicted upon his own story, and as well upon the 
relations of Indians to whom these supplies were 
given. 

Andros in 1677 declared that these ducal domains 
were "wholly deserted," but it was this year he 
began the fortification of Pemaquid. Four vessels 
were timber-laden and despatched to this place under 
the direction of Andros, and the result of this activity 
is described by one annalist; "The fort was a redoubt 
with two guns aloft, and an outwork about nine feet 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 249 

high, with two bastions in the opposite angles in each 
of which were two great guns, and another at the 
gateway. There were fifty soldiers with sufficient 
amunition, stores of war, and spare arms, and pro- 
visions for about eight months." A sloop with four 
guns was left here as a coast patrol. Lieutenant 
Anthony Brockholst ' was commanding officer, who 
had instructions to send one of the sloops with 
invitations to Henry Jocelyn, Robert Jordan, and 
Major Nicholas Shapleigh to take up their settle- 
ment at Pemaquid. A special designation of Jocelyn 
as magistrate was included, if Mr. Jocelyn could be 
induced to join in the upbuilding of frontier Pema- 
quid. Jocelyn accepted the commission and became 
one of the settlers of Pemaquid under the Andros 
administration. Soon afterward a peace was made 
with the savages. Pemaquid was made a port of 
entry; a monopoly of the fishing was attempted by 
Andros, and every discouragement was offered to the 
Massachusetts colony to prevent their trading with or 
coming into the domain of which Pemaquid was the 
constituted outlet. Traffic was confined to a single 
street upon which all the dwelling-houses opened, 
and which was protected by the fort. This traffic 
was to be consummated ''between sun and sun, for 
which the drum to beate or bell to ring, every morn- 
ing and evening, and neither Indyan nor Christian 
to drink any strong drink, or lye ashore, in the night, 
on the point where the fort stood." The regulations 
for the temperate habits of the settlers were stringent. 
Intruders were to be excluded from trading or fishing 



250 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

and extra precautions were to be observed for the 
personal safety of the inhabitants. The place was 
practically under martial law, and only the forces of 
the garrison were to know of the interior appurte- 
nances or disposition of the provisions, ordnance, 
or munitions of war, or any of the secret ways and 
means of defense. These edicts of Andros were to 
operate and be in force "as farr westward as Black- 
point," and Jocelyn was given full power of enforce- 
ment. The militia were to be properly disciplined 
and were to be the right arm of the law. Customs 
were to be exacted and promptly collected for the 
account of "Royall Highness in Pemaquid and its 
dependancies, " and the proper officials were inducted 
into office, whose duty it was to see that the excise 
law was faithfully observed. The settlement of the 
territory about Pemaquid and that "Betweene 
the River Kenebeke and St. Croix," was to be en- 
couraged, and fishing stations were planted wherever 
it was thought the industry might prosper. Every 
fishing station was to have its tavern, and every 
man, be he a planter or a fisherman, was to have a 
musket and sufficient ammunition. Trade with the 
Indians was limited to the two truck-houses of 
Pemaquid and Merrymeeting. "No stragling farms 
to be erected, and no houses built any where under 
the number of thirty," indicates the solidarity of the 
plan. The Bible was to be read by some suitable 
and piously inclined individual who had his authority 
from the powers that were; and to induce people to 
become amenable to the laws of the "Royall High- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 251 

ness", such were exempted from certain liability, 
notably from arrest for debt for the period of seven 
years. Non-residents were compelled to procure a 
license to trade, at the rate of "four kentalls mer- 
chantable fish for a decked vessell, and two kentalls 
for an open boate." 

But little attention was given to this drastic code 
of Andros, and illicit trade became common, and 
smugglers waxed bold and fat; so that in 1683 the 
boldest of these men of Pemaquid remonstrated 
against the abuses that prevailed openly in the terri- 
tory, and declined longer to submit to them, inti- 
mating their preference for the Massachusetts colony. 
The settlement was practically in a state of open 
revolt, and little could be done by the authorities but 
look on with a vacant stare of official imbecility. 

It was in this year that Henry Jocelyn, the former 
notable magistrate of Black Point, died. It will 
be remembered that the Jocelyn garrison at Black 
Point was attacked by Mug in 1675, and that Henry 
Jocelyn and his family, abandoned by the settlers, 
were taken captive. It was after that Jocelyn went 
to Pemaquid, and probably along with Brockholst 
when the second fort was built, and the ducal 
power of James of York was instituted. These six 
years of his official tenure under Andros were em- 
ployed as the trusted exponent of the Governor's in- 
tents and purposes, and he was perhaps the pivot 
about which turned the affairs of the renewed 
settlement. It was here that an eventful life was 
ended, for Jocelyn had been connected longer with 



252 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

public affairs than any other name in the contem- 
porary history of the time. His life was an active 
one and extended from his coming over as Mason's 
agent in 1634 for fifty years, his labors being divided 
between the Piscataqua, the Black Point country 
and Pemaquid. His high aims in life, his integrity, 
and his notable ability, and exemplary conduct 
among his fellowmen by which he secured and held 
the confidence of the governments he served, marks 
him along with Winthrop, as one of the great men 
of his day, as greatness went in that pioneer period. 
His actual public life began in 1635 when he was 
designated as one of the Commissioners of New Somer- 
setshire by Sir Ferdinando Gorges under Governor 
William Gorges whose seat of Government was at 
Saco, or where the first Court was gathered on 
March 25th, 1636, and from that time to his death, 
it was a continous service in the public behalf; and 
it is to be noted that in all this long career, no stain 
has attached to a single one of his acts, and it is due 
to his memory and his potent influence upon the lean 
years of Maine's pioneer story that a fitting memorial 
should have been erected to commemorate so fine 
a specimen of English manhood, and that it has not 
been done cannot be considered as other than a 
reflection upon the loyalty of these strenuous days 
to the pioneer ideal. If George Cleeve's monument 
stands for anything, that to Richard Vines and 
Henry Jocelyn would mean far more. 

The leaven of discontent and rebellion was at work 
in the Pemaquid settlement, and when the Duke of 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 253 

York became James II. it was still worse, for Andros 
was made Governor of New England. On September 
19 it was ordained that Pemaquid with all its appur- 
tenances and defenses should be covered into the 
government of New England. Andros was at last 
Governor of Massachusetts, and his implacable 
animosities against the Puritans were to have their 
glut. He was to be the active exponent of the hatred 
and bigot bitterness against the Puritan which had 
ever stirred the heart of James of York. Pemaquid 
had reverted to the Crown, and it may be regarded 
as the beginning of the final epoch of its latterly 
somewhat uncertain career. It was represented by 
Dongan as of no particular profit to the Ducal inter- 
est, that it was a great distance away from New 
York, that the maintainance of its fort was an 
uncalled for expense, and Dongan suggested annex- 
ing it to Boston, to which its fisheries would be an 
enterprising and profitable adjunct. Boston at this 
time was not so important as Pemaquid, but the 
knell of Pemaquid had sounded. 

It was here that Thomas Gyles whom the Indians 
had driven from Merrymeeting Bay, came about 
this time. He made some considerable purchases 
of land here. Governor Dongan had erected the 
country into the county of Cornwall, and Gyles 
was made its first Chief Justice. He found the 
people immoral, lawless, and suffering from the 
oppressions incident to the manipulations of West 
and Palmer of the titles to Pemaquid realty held 
by the planters. This state of affairs was made 



254 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

more irksome by the decision of the Council over 
which Anclros presided at Boston, that, while re- 
ferring to the inhabitants of the Pemaquid country, 
they were to be heard by the local court in all matters 
pertaining to their personal rights of life and liberty, 
"noe title of land" could be decided by Gyles' Court, 
but all questions of land titles were to be tried 
and decided in the Boston Courts. 

Perhaps from the course which public events 
took at a later date, it was fortunate that Pemaquid 
was a part of the body politic of Massachusetts. 
James was an adherent of the Pope, as was Louis 
XIV. Their desire was that the Catholic Propa- 
ganda should take firm root in New England, and it 
could be accomplished in but one way, — through 
the influence of the French in Canada. James II. 
was in full sympathy with the French Court and 
coincided with its designs upon the peace and pros- 
perity of the Bay Colony. He kept the French 
King informed of his plans for the government of 
his New England province, and was determined to 
establish an absolute government. As for Pema- 
quid, it was a standing menace to the French. It 
covered the entrance to the Kennebec country. 
Its garrison was ever ready to intercept and cut off 
their Indian allies, and as well obstruct the passage 
of their warriors and men at arms as they essayed 
to reach the settlements of the Piscataqua and south- 
ward. It was an undesirable occupant of the 
Abenake lands, and to whom it was a source of 
constant irritation, and they were ever ready to 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 255 

cooperate with the French in its utter rooting out 
and extirpation. By its very isolation, the pivotal 
out-post of the frontier, it was peculiarly open to 
invasion. Its remoteness from material assistance 
was fatal to its security; for, southward were only 
the sparse and scattered hamlets of Pejepscot, 
Casco, Scarborough and Saco, while from the Saco 
River to the Piscataqua were the isolate garrison- 
houses of Wells. These settlements were hardly 
able to maintain their own safety. On the contrary, 
at Castine's Parish of La Famille on the Penobscot, 
old Pentegoet, was a sturdy French settlement 
with a strong relay of Indians who were always at 
the bidding of the Baron St. Castine, and who were 
held in leash only by their French masters. 

In 1688 the rogues fell out. Dongan and Andros 
parted cables, and Randolph says, the Pemaquid 
colonists would "have been squeezed dry by Colonel 
Dongan, and his agents West and Graham." He 
says in another place, " there is no good understand- 
ing betwixt Colonel Dongan and Sir Edmund, and it 
was not well done of Palmer and West to tear all in 
pieces that was settled and granted at Pemaquid by 
Sir Edmund; that was the scene where they placed 
and displaced, at pleasure, and were as arbitrary 
as the great Turke; some of the first settlers of 
that eastern country were denyed grants of their 
own lands, whilst these men have given the im- 
proved lands amongst themselves," immense tracts 
of land. It was this year that Andros and his co- 
adjutor Randolph came down to Pemaquid on what 



256 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

would be called in these modern times a junketing 
excursion, and one of them notes that it was "by 
easy motions they got to Pemaquid where they 
stayed three or four days to refresh themselves with 
sheep and soules; " and they came to the conclusion 
as they went about its single street and looked over 
its farms and the country adjacent, that in the clays 
to come "it would be a very good place, being the 
only good porte for all vessels eastward to ride well 




and secure from danger, the fort should be well 
repaired." 

Perhaps Andros went to Pemaquid to see how his 
"farmers of the revenue," were carrying things, for, 
to Andros, as to Fouquet, these men were necessary 
for the gratification of the rapacity of Andros and 
his hirelings. It is noted in Randolph's letter that 
Palmer and West were commissioned by Dongan "to 
dispose of all their (the planters') lands to whoever 
would take leases at 5s the hundred acres quitrent!" 
But this excursion of Governor Andros was fraught 
with more serious consequences than the ill effects 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 257 

of a stomach over-loaded with the surfeitings of 
"sheep and soules", for it was at this time he deter- 
mined to sail farther to the eastward for a look in 
upon the domestic arrangements of Baron St. Cas- 
tine. He sailed down to Penobscot Bay and up the 
river to Pentagoet. Castine was away from home. 
Andros landed and proceeded with his accustomed 
audacity to loot the fort and Castine's store-houses, 
with the plunder from which he loaded his vessels 
and sailed away for Pemaquid. Prior to this time, 
Castine had been neutral. His inclinations had been 
of the most peaceful character, but on his return 
home to discover the havoc which had been wrought 
by the piratical Andros, he made no effort to re- 
strain the vengeance of his Tarratines, and a year 
later they were unloosed to swoop down on Fort 
Charles of Pemaquid. 

Andros made his way safely to Pemaquid where 
he entertained a sister of Madockawando and Moxies' 
squaw, indulging in a drunken debauch. When 
they departed, after two days of rioting and drunken- 
ness, they were given a file of soldiers to see them 
safely on their way as far as New Harbor, and they 
went laden with baskets of ammunition. It is sug- 
gestive of the intrigue charged to Andros that he 
not only abetted the Indians but aided them in their 
acts of hostility. 

In the following year of 1689 by mid-summer the 
French and Indians were on the war-path. Andros 
had anticipated this and had advised the Mohawks 
to make peace with the French and at the same time 



258 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

ordered the settlers of the Maine Province neither 
to fortify or garrison their dwellings. He did, how- 
ever, send a large body of troops' to Pemaquid who 
were officered by men who were in his confidence 
and of the same religious faith as the French Louis. 
These men died, largely from exposure, and accord- 
ing to Hutchinson and the annals on file in the New 
York Historical Collections, the number of deaths 
from exposure and the hardships of the service was 
more than the entire fighting contingent among the 
savages at that time. There was no activity in the 
field, and with all this charge of life and provision- 
ing, nothing was accomplished. In fact, Andros 
did not expect that anything would be accomplished, 
nor was it so intended. 

The savages were ready for the bloody work cut 
out for them by their French masters. Thury's 
zeal was about to bring forth its harvest of slaughter 
and rapine. He had for years taught the savage 
that if he wished again to be sole master of the old 
hunting-grounds, he must exterminate the English. 
The hostilities opened in August of 1688. The cattle 
were killed or driven off, and the savages began to be 
insolent, and the make obscure threats of war and 
that they were encouraged to do so by the French. 
The alarm was swiftly sent to the southward and the 
settlements were soon aroused to a state of nervous 
expectancy, no one knowing where the first blow 
would fall. It was supposed that Falmouth would 
be the objective point, but the French and Indians 
first appeared at North Yarmouth, and where Captain 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 259 

Gendall, who will be recalled as one of the early 
settlers of Black Point and a neighbor of Ambrose 
Boaden, was killed in an ambuscade. This was the 
first overt act of the savages, to be closely followed by 
others, which, while not of a very tragic character, 
were sufficiently disturbing to keep the settlements 
in a ferment of continual anxiety. Ineffectual 
efforts for peace were made by Andros, and it was 
in November of this year that he inarched the 
considerable body of soldiers to Pemaquid already 
alluded to. Ultimately, he established a garrison 
here of thirty-six men under Captain Brockholst and 
Lieutenant Weems, of the regular forces, also two 
companies of untried militia who were under the 
command of Tyng and Minot. In all, the garrison 
footed up one hundred and fifty-six men and four 
officers. Altogether, eastward of the Kennebec, the 
number of troops amounted to five hundred and 
sixty-eight, who were assembled for the defense of 
the frontier. Captain George Lockhart was in com- 
mand at Falmouth (Casco Neck), against whom sus- 
picions were aroused of his dealing surreptitiously 
with the Indians, a suspicion that attached to most 
of the officers in command of the Andros forces. 
Undoubtedly this was largely due to the fact that 
they were communicants of the Catholic faith, against 
which the Puritan invariably opposed himself with 
a bitter virulency. 

Out of this peculiar attachment of the Andros 
faction to the Church of Rome grew the uprising in 
Boston which culminated in the arrest of Andros on 



260 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

April 18th of the following year. It was a revolu- 
tion brought about by the tyranny of Andros, and 
promptly terminated his influence upon the affairs 
of the colony. The news of the arrest and imprison- 
ment of the Governor found its way quickly to the 
eastern garrisons, with the immediate result that the 
soldiers deserted their officers, and the garrisons were 




ANCIENT PEMAQUID GRAVEYARD 

in a defenseless condition. Later, Andros made a 
report of the disposition of the colonial forces, and he 
says of the garrison at Pemaquid, "Upon the insur- 
rection, the forces being withdrawn, and only eight- 
een of the standing company left in garrison, the 
fort is since taken by the French and Indians and 
the country destroyed." Edmund Andros cannot 
be otherwise regarded than as the evil genius of 
Pemaquid. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 261 

Appeals from the eastern settlements were sent 
into Boston, and the Bay Colony in August despatched 
several companies by land under the command of 
Major Swain. Danforth had been reinstated as the 
head of the Massachusetts Colony in June, and Major 
Church was on his way to Falmouth by September, 
but all this was unavailing so far as Pemaquid 
was concerned, for Fort Charles and the settlement 
which it was intended to protect, were destroyed 
about the time that Major Swain was marching out 
of Boston. It was at this time that Chief Justice 
Thomas Gyles was killed and his family carried into 
captivity. The result of this raid and others made 
farther up the Kennebec River, was that the entire 
Kennebec country was deserted. The fort at Pema- 
quid was captured easily, for all it made a stubborn 
resistance under Captain Weems. Great quantities 
of hand-grenades were thrown by the French, and the 
Indians, urged on by their desire for vengeance, 
forgot their usual discretion in fighting only from 
cover, and charged the walls of the fortification, 
mounting them like squirrels, to leap over into the 
fort interior. The many men killed and the wound 
which he, himself, had received, compelled Weems to 
surrender on the second day of the assault, but, by 
the terms accorded, he was enabled to get away in 
Pateshall's vessel with many of his people. Pemaquid 
was in the hands of the French and the savages from 
the Penobscot woods; so Castine was abundantly 
revenged for the liberties which Andros had seen 
fit to take with his property at Pentagoet. 



262 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

In 1691 this fort was dismantled and the great 
guns and the stores which were not destroyed by the 
Indians were carried to Boston, and, perhaps, in the 
sloop which Andros caused to be built here. But 
the glory of Pemaquid had apparently departed. The 
English flag was down, and the crime of the Stuarts, 
from the Puritan point of view, had been perpetrated. 
Its great resources were now open to the occupa- 
tion of the hated Papist, and where was before the 
metropolis of the coast were only the ruins wrought 
by the Penobscots. 

The outlook was hopeless. The savages were 
thoroughly equipped by the French, and instigated 
and officered by the French, with their familiarity 
with the defiles and secret places in the wilderness 
of woods amid which they made their homes, they 
were a formidable enemy. There was but one thing 
to do; it was useless to maintain a losing fight with 
the cowardly savage whose attacks were made on 
isolated cabins in the dead of the night, and who picked 
off the English from the shadows of the fences, or 
swarmed the streets of their villages with ghostly 
footsteps to later awake the night silence with their 
whoops and war-cries, lighting their way with here 
and there a burning roof. To follow these fiends into 
the deeps of the woods was to run into a well-laid 
ambush, which meant extermination. It was need- 
ful to carry the conflict into the camp of those who 
were responsible for these atrocities. An active 
campaign against the French in Canada was imme- 
diately begun, and it was the son of the Pemaquid 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 263 

gunsmith, Phipps, who came over in the time of 
Shurt's administration, who was to lead the expe- 
dition. Young Phipps had learned his alphabet as 




he swung his adz, and from that his learning increased, 
until the King offered to make him the Governor 
of New England with absolute powers. This high 



264 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

honor he declined that he might the better serve the 
interests of the Boston colony. The proposition for 
the reduction of Canada came from Phipps and the 
plan was at once approved by Massachusetts, and it 
was carried forward with such celerity that on the 
11th of May, 1690, Port Royal was captured and the 
entire sea coast westward was reduced to the dom- 
ination of the English. Williamson says Shurt died 
during this year. Flushed with his success the attempt 
was made against Quebec but it was not successful. 
It had the result, however, to induce the Indians 
to propose a peace. The result was a stay of the 
savage reprisals which had been made on the settle- 
ments from the Kennebec to the Piscataqua, and the 
interval was taken up with the strengthening the 
settlements along the sea against the later possible 
onslaughts of the French. Dr. Mather had made 
his report to the ministry at home which had the 
effect to confirm the home government in the resolve 
to support the New England colonies in their efforts 
to withstand the aggressions of the French, and it 
was under instructions from the Crown that Sir 
William Phipps came to Pemaquid in the mid- 
summer of 1692, with a force of four hundred and 
fifty men. His object was to erect a strong fortifi- 
cation, and the result was a stone fortress. Above 
two thousand cart-loads of stone went into its con- 
struction, and when it was finished, it was known as 
Fort William Henry, but more commonly alluded to 
as Pemaquid Fort. It was said to have been one of 
the strongest and largest in America. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 265 

Phipps asked Major Church for his advice in the 
matter, but the major was of the opinion that as 
against Indian tactics a fort was futile, adding, " he 
had never any value for them, being only nests of 
destruction." This estimate was borne out later 
when Chubb was summoned to surrender in 1694. It 
was of quadrangular figure, and outside its walls it 
measured seven hundred and thirty-seven feet. Its 
interior was one hundred and eight feet square. 
Twenty-eight ports, in which were mounted twenty- 
eight guns, six of which were eighteen-pounders, 
frowned upon one as the fort was approached, and 
the walls at the ports were over six feet in thickness, 
and were eight feet from the ground. The sea-wall 
was twenty-two feet in height. At the western end 
of this southern wall was the great flanker or round 
tower which was twenty feet high, and the easterly 
wall was twelve feet high, the north wall, ten feet, and 
the west wall, eighteen feet. It was twenty rods 
above high-water mark, and its regular garrison was 
from sixty to one hundred men, or more. 

The spring of 1693 was rife with rumors of an 
attack to be made on Pemaquid, which was as likely 
to include all of the towns along the coast-line as far 
as the Piscataqua, and perhaps beyond. The fort at 
Pemaquid had the effect to restrain the inroads of 
the savages, and a smaller fortress of stone was built 
at Saco Falls in 1693, and was known as Fort Mary. 
The result was, that Captain Converse was able to 
make a peace with the Indians. And it also came 
about that Madockawando and Egremet along with 



266 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

other of the Sagamores of the eastern tribes came into 
Pemaquid with a flag of truce. This was the twentieth 
of July of that year, and it was the occasion of the 
surrender of several English captives to the com- 
manding officer, Captain John March. A further 
truce was agreed upon which was to last until August 
18th, at which time it was proposed to enter into a 
permanent treaty of peace. This peace-party was 
held a week before the appointed time and was 




FORT FREDERICK BEFORE THE EXCAVATION 

made an occasion of considerable importance, the 
Indians of the Penobscot, Kennebec, Androscoggin 
and Saco Rivers being in attendance by their Saga- 
mores, — there were thirteen of them, — and by a 
written agreement they made confession of their 
error, and promised to abandon the " instigation and 
influences of the French." The Indians observed 
their usual integrity, and the treaty was broken by 
them a few months later. Not a year had elapsed 
before the Jesuit influence again became paramount, 
and the savages were killing and burning until the 
winter came 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 267 

One of these Sagamores who made the peace treaty 
with Captain March was Bomazeen, Sachem of the 
Norridgewacks (Nanrantsouaks) . He was notably 
the most treacherous and cruel, and most apt at the 
hideous deviltries, the brutalities, the murders and 
razings, of his race. He was the leader of the Nor- 
ridgewocks, and the schooling of the Jesuits had not 
been in vain. It was in 1646 that Gabriel Dreuil- 
lettes set up his altar at old Nanrantsouak and for- 
tified it with the spectre of the tree borne by Simon 
up the steeps of Golgotha, to have his labors taken 
up by Vincent and Jacques Bigot a generation later, 
and which were re-enforced by those of Thury at 
Pentagoet. Of the Fathers Bigot, and their in- 
fluence, perhaps M. Denonville is the best contem- 
porary authority, when he writes the French Minister 
of Marine that he is much indebted to the zealous 
Bigots for the good feeling of the Abenake for the 
French, and the successes which the Indians had 
afforded them in their warfare against the English 
settlements. The Bigots were at Norridgewack at 
this time, and found Bomazeen an apt pupil in their 
peculiar propaganda for the extension of the French 
influence to the southward, and it was Vincent Bigot 
who on one occasion accompanied the Norridge- 
wacks on one of their murderous inroads upon the 
English settlements, doubtless to see that their 
brutal work was executed to the French taste. 
Charlevoix is authority for this statement. 

The rites of the Church possessed a mystic quality 
for the savage that was peculiarly effective, and the 



268 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

simplicity of living which the Jesuit affected, easily 
adapting himself to the habit and customs of the 
savage, was not without its influence. Bigot's 
cloister was but a rude cabin of bark. A bear skin 
along its earthen floor was his aescetic couch. His 
dishes were made of the virgin bark of the birch, 
and his food was such as the Indians were able to 
obtain from the chase. His life was apparently one 
wholly devoted to their spiritual guidance and was 
colored with a gentle solicitude. Such was the 




FISH POINT 



instructor and adviser of the wily and treacherous 
Bomazeen. 

The summer of 1694 was fraught with bloodshed 
and savage rapacity. The Pemaquid garrison had 
captured several Indians, and the attempt was 
made to learn from them the designs of the French, 
but not much came of it. Sheepscote John, a hos- 
tage, was questioned as to the condition and intent of 
the enemy, and an effort was made to effect an ex- 
change of prisoners, which, in the end, was ineffec- 
tual, and winter was close at hand. Bomazeen, at 
this time, appeared as the ambassador of his tribe. 
He approached the Pemaquid fort bearing a flag of 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 269 

truce. With mild pretense, he said that he, with 
his fellow savages, had just come down from Canada; 
confessed his ill-doings; professed his repentance; 
promised to smother his murderous inclinations and 
let the English alone thereafter. 

An eye-witness of the episode says: "November 
19th (1694), Bomazeen, with ten or a dozen Indians, 
called over the barbican, desiring to speak with 
Captain March, and set up a flag by which they did 
implicitly own themselves enemies and breakers of 
the peace. We did not put out ours until an hour 
or two after theirs; would have persuaded them 
there was no reason for it; minding them of their 
late agreement at Pemaquid; but they called ear- 
nestly for it. We resolved to seize Bomazeen at any 
rate, except by positive violation of promise. We 
made no other promise before he came over but that 
we should be glad of his company, would treat him 
kindly, and do him no hurt. After he was seized, we 
told him the same, and observed it punctually, so long 
as he staid here; but withal told him we must know 
who did the mischief at Oyster River and Groton, 
&c, of which they made themselves ignorant; why 
the peace was so soon broken and by whom; that 
they must go to Boston and abide there till Sheeps- 
cote John was sent to fetch in the other Sagamores, 
and then they should come again with some of the 
English to treat, &c. We thought it not unlawful, 
nor culpable to apprehend such perfidious villians 
and traitors (though under a white rag) that have so 
often falsified their promise to the English, viz: at 



270 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Cocheco, at Casco Fort, at Oyster-river and other 
places; that makes no conscience of breaking the 
peace whenever it serves their turn, although never 
so solemnly confirmed with subscriptions and oaths." 
In these days of national comity, such a violation 
of a flag of truce, however aggravating might be 
the circumstances, would be wholly unjustifiable. 
Hutchinson, writing of the incident, condemns it, 
and yet palliates it with an allusion to the habitual 
and notorious bad faith of the savage. 

It was evidently a pretense to get into the fort 
that its force might be estimated, as our eye witness 
says: "we are credibly informed, they came with a 
certain design to destroy their Majestie's fort here, 
under the pretence of trade, friendship, &c, and so 
they are fallen into a pit of their own digging." 
There is not a doubt but Bomazeen was acting 
under the instructions of the Jesuit Bigot, as the 
latter was in constant communication with the 
authorities at Quebec, and had information of the 
designs of the French against the English. Hutch- 
inson says: "Of course, the habitual treachery of 
the French, — for the Indians were their subjects 
and acting under their instructions, — could afford 
no sufficient justification of even one instance of 
bad faith in others. Captain March considered the 
Indians as rebels, and Massachusetts thought that 
' for their perfidy they ought to be treated as land- 
pirates and murderers.' " 

The result of this drastic procedure at the Pemaquid 
fort had the effect to impress the Indians with a whole- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 271 

some respect forthe English; and the arrest and detain- 
ment of the flower of the Norridgewack tribe wrought 
a peaceable demeanor for a time. There was an- 
other reason for the quiet which prevailed through 
the year 1695. A "fatal distemper" swept across 
the faces of the Abenake, and to quote Hutchinson 
again, — "the French found it impracticable to send 
them out in parties upon our frontiers. Besides the 
hostages they had given in 1693, the Indians seized 
at Pemaquid were in prison at Boston; Bomazeen in 
particular they greatly valued, and they were ready 
to submit to almost any terms to obtain their release. 
The French represent the English as treating the 
hostages and prisoners with cruelty; but there was 
no other cruelty than a confinement in a prison in 
Boston, which, it must be acknowledged, was a very 
bad one. The English were not less desirous of 
peace than the Indians, if they could have any 
security of the continuance of it. One of the hos- 
tages, Sheepscote John, undertook to go from Boston 
as a mediator, and, by his influence, fifty canoes of 
Indians came within a league of the fort at Pemaquid, 
the twentieth of May, and sent in eight captives; 
acknowledging their fault in violating the last treaty, 
and proposed the release of the captives on both sides, 
and the establishment of a durable peace. A truce 
of thirty days was agreed upon, and the Commis- 
sioners were to come from Boston, to settle the terms 
of peace. The Commissioners, Colonel Philips, Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Hawthorn, and Major Convers, soon 
after met delegates from the Indians, at Pema- 



272 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

quid, but refused to enter upon any treaty with them 
until all the English in their hands should be delivered 
up. Bomazeen, their great warrior, and some others, 
were left in prison in Boston. The Indians looked 
upon themselves as not well used ; sensible that when 
they had parted with all their prisoners, they should 
have no way of obtaining the release of their own 
people, except by a new set of captives. They, 








THE SHIPYARD 



therefore, refused to treat any further, and left the 
place abruptly. The government, I imagine, ex- 
pected that, by retaining some of the Indians as 
hostages, some restraint would be laid upon the rest, 
from exercising cruelty towards English prisoners, 
seeing we should have it in our power to retaliate 
it 'upon their own people; and chose rather to risk the 
continuance of the war than part with this security. 
" Charlevoix, who supposes the Lieut-Governor, 
Stoughton, to have been there in person, says 'the 
Abenaquis insisted upon the release of their bretheren, 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 273 

who were detained in violation of the flag of truce, 
and the laws of nations, and Stoughton only returned 
bloody reproaches for their late hostilities, and terrible 
threats if they did not deliver up the authors of them. 
The Indians were as stout as he was. At length both 
sides began to soften. Stoughton was not willing 
to drive to extremity a people who had formerly 
known how to make themselves a terror. They 
were desirous, at any rate, of recovering their rela- 
tions out of the hands of the English; being fully 
determined, that when they had accomplished their 
ends, they would revenge the blood of such as had 
been murdered; but perceiving that, while they were 
in treaty, the English were preparing to surround 
them, they ran to their arms.' This was no doubt 
the account they gave to their priest when they 
returned home." 

This quotation from Hutchinson throws a side-light 
on the conditions and influences that prevailed along 
the frontier at that time, of which, as we have seen, 
Pemaquid was the out-post, and as well the mutual 
distrust and the intent of the French to over-reach 
the English, if it were a possible thing, in these 
negotiations of the savages, made apparently in good 
faith, but actually at the instigation of their Jesuit 
teachers. The French were adepts in the art of 
deception, while the English were more blunt and of 
infinitely better intention. It was the rapier against 
the broad-sword. 

The year before, the Newport, one of her Majesty's 
ships of the line, came over accompanied by a sister 



274 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

ship, the Sorlings. They had a tender along, and 
were ordered to lay off the St. John River to await the 
arrival of their store-ship, unaware of the fact that 
at Quebec two French men-of-war were being actively 
fitted for service, the object of which was the destruc- 
tion of the fort at Pemaquid. Superior to the 
English ships in their equipment, their command 
was given to DTberville. Villebon of St. John had 
conveyed to the French at Quebec the news of the 




FORT FREDERICK WITH THE RUINS PARTLY RESTORED 

arrival of the English ships, and with two companies 
of troops and a relay of fifty Micmacs, DTberville 
sailed down the river and came upon the English 
suddenly. A battle ensued, when one of the New- 
port's top-masts went by the board and she was com- 
pelled to surrender. In the meantime a kindly 
fog had blown in from the bay, and the Sorlings and 
the tender got safely away to Boston. A new top- 
mast in place on the Newport made her, with the 
refitting given her at St. John, for DTberville another 






YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 275 

stout warship, and greatly strengthened his fleet. 
From St. John he sailed down to the Penobscot where 
Castine awaited him with two hundred savages, and 
by the fourteenth of July they had dropped anchor 
before Pemaquid, but the courageous and energetic 
March had left the command of the fort, some months 
before, to a man of an entirely different calibre. It 
was an unfortunate absence. 

D 'Iberville promptly sent in a summons for an 
immediate surrender. 

Captain Chubb, the commander of the fort, 
replied, boastingly, "if the sea was covered with 
French vessels, and the land with Indians, yet he 
would not give up the fort." The assault was begun 
by the land forces under Castine, the savages opening 
fire, which was met by a return of musketry and 
cannon from the fort walls. The battle continued 
through that day, after a desultory fashion, and 
without particular loss to either side; and, as the 
sun went down, the conflict abated. As the dusk 
deepened, D'Iberville began the consummation of 
his plan of attack. He worked silently, and as the 
morn broke, Chubb found his stronghold regularly 
invested. D'Iberville was ashore with his cannon 
and mortars; and by mid-afternoon his batteries 
were raised, and began throwing their bombs into 



276 YE ROMANCE OF OLD® PEMAQUID 

the fort interior. Chubb was in a state of mortal 
terror. His cowardice extended to his soldiery, 
and the garrison was in a condition of mind to 
be easily overcome. It was at this juncture that 
Castine had in some manner conveyed to Chubb 
the threat, "that, if they delayed surrendering until 
the assault was made, they would have to do with 
savages, and must expect no quarter, for he had 
seen the King's order to Iberville to give none." 

Chubb's fear of the savages was so overpowering 
that he consented to receive the terms of the French 
forthwith, which were, that the garrison "should be 
sent to Boston, and exchanged for a like number 
of French and Indian prisoners," with a special 
guaranty of protection against the savagery of the 
wild allies of D'Iberville and Castine. The conditions 
were to be regarded as favorable, but so great was 
the fury of the Indians upon finding one of their 
race in irons in the fort, that the garrison could be 
secured only by its removal to a man to an adjacent 
island under a strong guard of French soldiers. 

This officer, Chubb, was sharply criticised, and he 
was put in arrest, but after a rigid investigation 
he was simply suspended. He had under his com- 
mand a force of ninety men, with fifteen mounted can- 
non and an abundant supply of stores and ammuni- 
tion. His defense might have been successful, but 
the odds were greatly against him. Had he main- 
tained an obstinate resistance, and been overcome 
finally, it is a question whether any would have 
been left to have told the tale. The slaughter would 






YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 277 

have been indiscriminate and complete; the Indians, 
once let loose, like a huge pack of wolves, would have 




THE CACHE 



indulged their glut for massacre to the end. A 
structure without casemates, having only a bomb- 
proof magazine, would have afforded but little 



278 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

shelter against the French bombs. A sortie from 
the fort would have been fool-hardy in the extreme, 
with the odds nearly six to one. The simple truth 
was that D 'Iberville had come upon the English with 
an ample force, to find them unprepared for a success- 
ful resistance, not only from a lack of men, but as 
well the lack of a leader. 

The English had reason to fear the revenge of the 
savage. They had somewhat indulged in cruelties 
and barbarities, and this last instance was of very 
recent occurrence, not farther away than the pre- 
ceding February, when Egremet, the Machias 
Sagamore, came to Pemaquid to make an exchange 
of prisoners, when Chubb and his garrison attacked 
their savage visitors in the midst of their treaty 
negotiations, killing Egremet, and Abenaquid, and 
two other savages. Some others were made pris- 
oners, while Toxus and a few escaped. Looking 
at the episode at this distant day, Chubb may be 
said to have fared very well. He was thoroughly 
maligned at the time, but it is Bizet who says, "some 
day we will appear to those who come after us just 
as devoid of good judgement and intellectual facul- 
ties as our own elders appear to us to have been." 
Time is a great ironer of the passions of men, and a 
like great condoner of their offenses, and what in its 
day was thought to be "a horrid piece of villainy" 
has, now, two centuries away, the guise of dire 
necessity. 

It was on the eighteenth of July, four days later, 
that the French sailed from Pemaquid, while Castine 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 279 

and his Tarratine wolves had slunk back to their 
lairs. Fort William Henry was dismantled and 
stripped of its ordnance, and the conquest of 
Arcadia was complete. Pemaquid was again deso- 
late, and, as one writer has said, — "this was the 
inglorious close of the first period of her history." 
For many years after, Casco was the frontier town 
of the English settlements; while the once metrop- 
olis of the eastern coast was left to the solitude of 
Nature. 







NEEDLE-LIKE PEMAQUID POINT 

As one goes down the road from Bristol to the 
fork that leads westward to Fort Point, or eastward 
to New Harbor, or still on to Pemaquid Point, one 
has on either hand an inimitable picture gallery. 
It is rock-strewn, wood-ribbed Pemaquid, with charm- 
ing glimpses of the sea and the snug islands that 
here and there thickly dot the roadsteads. All 
the way it is historic ground, and one is walking 
over the remains of centuries. Of all its former 
importance, there is left only a fishing village, where 
not long since the fresh salty flavor of the sea and 
odors of the wild flowers were poisoned by the rank 



280 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

smells of the porgy factories. Whether one makes 
this journey by day or by night, his way is haunted 
by the ghosts of the past; and whether the sunlight 
floods the restless waters, or the flames of the light- 
houses dip their ruddy arrows in the blackness of the 
moaning sea, the romance of the place is not for- 
gotten. By day white sails dot the numerous bays, 
or flash their patches of silver against the edge of 
the horizon. After sundown, with the full moon 
breaking the low-lying haze, the scene is idyllic. 
Along the shore are the straggling cottages of the 
fishermen and the more ambitious hibernacles of 
the summer dweller. There are old cellars on the 
northerly side of New Harbor, and here was no doubt 
the place where the fishermen of old came to dry 
their fish. Years ago there were to be seen here 
the remains of an old fort. Numerous relics have 
been dug up about the immediate vicinity, along 
with coins, arrow-heads and Indian tools. One can 
trace the ruins of old Fort Frederick, which was 
undoubtedly built upon the remains of the former 
fortifications. As one stands upon the green incline 
that overlooks the rocks that are always wet with 
the spray of the tides, and looks backward to the 
higher land on the west shore of St. John's River, 
and of which DTberville took swift advantage in 
1696, one wonders that this stronghold should have 
been located just here. One may stand upon the old 
rock, once a part of the magazine of old Fort William 
Henry, and from it one builds the old fortress in the 
twinkling of an eye. But the most interesting 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 281 

relic hereabout is the old burying-ground, with its 
suggestions of antiquity which are answered only 
by the straining of the alert imagination. Here or 
there, is a rough memorial of rock showing a strain 
of lichen, and one puts the ear to its gritty cheek as 
if to catch the faintest hint of the mystery for which 
it stands silent sponsor, but it is as mute as the ele- 
ments out of which it was fused in the days of Chaos. 







If ever Pemaquid was a populous community, here 
is a more populous one. It was here where the once 
numerous verdure-embossed mounds told the visi- 
ble tale of olden Pemaquid's mortality, where the 
pathos of humble lives made its poetry and its prose 
alike, filling in the woof of the lean years, and years 
of richer meed, only to lapse into the oblivion of an 
utter desolation. Of all the lines once writ here in 
the grass, not one is left, only these vagrant rem- 



282 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

nants of the Stone Age. If one saunters along the 
sea sands there is only the murmur of the ocean. 
The winds blow, and blow, but even they iterate 
their olden monodies. One sees the same ever- 
lasting overarching dome of sky, with the same 
uneven floor of waters, and up from the rim of the 
sands, the same up-looking ledges and pliant grasses 
that were here when the mill-wheel, huge and cum- 
bersome, threw its water-drops to the sunlight. 
Other than these, and the ragged scarp of the old 
fort, the indents of the ancient cellars, and the foot- 
less buried pavements, it is as if olden Pemaquid 
were more a myth than a once-time reality. 







MONHEGAN 




MONHEGAN 

ISLE La Nef of Champlain, the 
St. Georges Island of Way- 
mouth and the M'nhiggin of 
the fisherman, are one and the 
same, and its huge granite 
spine rises from out the sea 
with every dawn, breaking 
the obscurity of the slow dis- 
sipating mists, or the thick 
pall of the fogs that roll in 
landward in the August days, 
It was rightly named by Cham- 
plain, but like the Isle of Bacchus, its first christen- 
ing has been superseded by the more prosaic but 
not less characteristic cognomen, Monhegan. 

A half-dozen leagues away from Boothbay Harbor 
it looms against the sky like some dripping monster 
of the sea, and as one watches the restless flow of the 
tide, in or out, broken into shreds of waves, it seems 

285 




like a ship's hull. 



286 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

likewise to undulate as if it were endowed with life; 
for its blunt nose much resembles the head of a sperm 
whale. As one looks more fixedly, it is, after all, just 
an island, in the sea, but a notable one for all that, 
for its history is associated with the most ancient 
discoveries of the North American coast, and it has 
ever been a landmark for the navigator since the 
days of the Cabots. It is the most famous island on 
the American coast, and its designation by Cham- 
plain in 1604 as Isle La Nef, was its initiatory induc- 
tion, its debut into European nomenclature. As 
Drake says, — "To it the voyages of Weymouth, 
of Popham, and of Smith converge." It is the out- 
post of the Norombegua of the ancients, and shares 
with Matinicus the guardianship of the traditions of 
Penobscot Bay. It is a royal family it leads, these 
countless isles of the Maine Coast, nor has it a peer 
among its kind. It is a huge mass of rock, gigantic, 
awesome, as one sails under its shadows, beneath 
walls that tower and overhang a hundred feet in air. 
For a good mile it stretches its length along the plain 
of the waste of waters that are ever churning huge 
spans of snow-white foam against its adamant; and 
rise the tempest never so high, or when the billows, 
storm-driven, throw their spray over its highest 
pinnacle, it stands the perfect exponent of its Creator, 
that One 

" Who plants his footsteps in the sea, 
And rides upon the storm." 

Its Walls are those of a castle of mighty dimen- 
sions, black and forbidding, or painted in beautiful 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 287 

and inimitable mosaics, as the dark clouds lower, 
or the warm sunlight floods every nook and crevice 
of its seamless masonry. The centuries have dulled 
its pristine freshness into a hoary sea-dog, the un- 
wearying, sleepless watchman of the southern gate 
of the great river whose swelling waters once swept 
past the fabled city, the El Dorado of the 16th 




THE WASHERWOMAN, LOBSTER COVE 



century, and whose every pellucid drop mirrors the 
romance of unwritten years and the voiceless tra- 
ditions of unknown peoples. 

The name of this heap of stone, mid-sea, Monhe- 
gan, is perhaps a corruption of Monan, Mananas, 
or Monahan, and is Franco-Indian in its derivation. 



288 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

The Monhegan Indians claimed it as their own, nor 
was it in their time the wood-denuded isle that it is 
to-day; for as one looks at it from the point of view 
of three centuries ago, it must be with the vision of 
James Rosier. To him, it was a charming oasis of 
verdure planted amid the blue waters, — "woody, 
grown with fir, birch, oak and beech, as far as we 
saw along the shore and likely to be within. On the 
verge grow gooseberries, strawberries, wild pears and 
wild rosebushes. The water issued forth down the 
rocky cliffs in many places; and much fowl of divers 
kinds breed upon the shore and rocks." It was in the 
days of the Monhegans, and before the fishermen and 
they who had come to dwell upon it had cut its trees 
for fishing-stages and cabins and fuel, a delightfully 
habitable place, for it is an island of considerable 
area. The Monhegans found it undoubtedly a most 
convenient resort. But their burial-ground was not 
here, being across the water toward the mainland of 
Tappan Island. 

Cadillac mentions it as Meniguen. He says, — 
"Three leagues to seaward (probably from Pema- 
quid Point), there is an island called Meniguen. 
There were about twenty families employed in fishing 
around this island, but our Indians have made them 
abandon it." Cadillac made this note about the 
time of the capture of Fort AVilliam Henry, and per- 
haps he might have returned from his mission among 
the Iroquois so that he kept DTberville company. 
Monhegan Island is about four leagues from Pema- 
quid Point, from whence its blunt outline is clearly 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 289 

visible, though somewhat softened by the haze that 
lingers horizon-ward through the milder seasons. 

Verrazzano, in 1524, rounded Cape Sable, and is 
reputed to have sailed down the coast as far as Florida. 
It was the habit of the voyagers of those days to hug 
the shores for safety, as well for the purpose of 
acquiring a definite knowledge of the contour of 
the neighboring coast, and he must have noted 
Monhegan. In fact, from the chart of Antonio Zeno, 
1400, where one finds Drogeo to the south of Estot- 
iland (Greenland), to the reproduction of the Ver- 
razzano charts by Ribero, 1529, to Lok, in 1582, the 
islands, on what must be taken to be the coast of 
Maine, are clearly depicted. So are the Sloane maps 
very suggestive. These bear the date of 1530. Most 
suggestive of all the early maps is that one made 
by the royal order of the French Henry II. which 
bears the date of the year 1543, on which the Penob- 
scot is clearly drawn and the islands of Penobscot 
Bay, and it is located as the country of Auorobagra 
and to the westward is the Archipelago of Estienne 
Gomez which would correspond to the islands 
grouped between Mont Desert and Cape Elizabeth. 
So it is fair to assume that from the earliest voyages 
this Monhegan isle has been associated with the 
Drogeo of the Icelanders, the terra incognita of Ver- 
razzano, and of the Cabots, and the Norombega 
of Mercator, which brings it down to the time of 
Champlain. 

The Cabots noted it in 1597-8. Gosnold was 
sailing past it in 1602, to be followed the next year 



290 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

by Pring. Gosnold was hardly on the coast of 
Maine before the aborigines had climbed the sides of 
the Dartmouth to stand upon her deck, and if Gos- 
nold is to be taken at his word, they were garbed 
much after the old-world fashion, being clothed in 
European apparel, and carried themselves with a 
bold assurance. Champlain followed with Sieur 
Du Monts close upon the heels of Pring; and it is 
Samuel Champlain who, for those who were to come 
after him, gave a name to Monhegan. 

Champlain's visit to these waters was in the fall 
of 1604. In fact, Monhegan marked the boundary 
of the western explorations of that year by Du Monts. 
After coming thus far down the Maine coast, these 
Frenchmen sailed back to the St. Croix River, where 
they wintered on St. Croix Island, which may now 
be located off the lower part of the city of Calais, 
and which in these days bears the less euphonious 
appellation of Ducette's Island. With the returning 
days of spring, the French Expedition deserted this 
first location, went down the river, and thence sailed 
across the Bay of Fundy into the basin of Minas 
where a permanent settlement was founded at 
Port Royal. When the work had been well for- 
warded, Du Monts and Champlain set out anew for 
the discovery of the coast to the westward. They 
were again at Monhegan by mid-summer, but just 
missed Waymouth who had come across in the early 
season and who was up the Kennebec River search- 
ing out a place for the colony which was to follow 
him the succeeding year. Champlain kept on to the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 291 

Isles of Shoals, thence dodging Cape Ann, he crossed 
Massachusetts Bay down to the Norse Cape 
Kialarnes, which to the French annalist became 
Cape Malabarre, but which to Pilgrims stood for 
plain Cape Cod. Making their return they came up 
the Bay of Maine, reaching the mouth of the Saga- 
dahoc just after Waymouth had thrown his sails 
to the wind for the homeward voyage. Champlain 
had news of the English explorer from the savages, 
so it is easy to locate Waymouth at this time at 
Monhegan, for the savages complained to the French 
that the Englishman had killed five of their tribe, 
when he had simply kidnapped them in order to 
afford these rude aboriginees a course at the school 
of English civilization. It was at this time that 
Monhegan became to Champlain, Isle La Nef, as 
Richmond's Island was to become the Isle of Bacchus. 
Mont Desert seems to be the only fortunate island 
along broken coast of Maine to retain the name of 
its earliest christening. 

If Champlain and Du Monts were the first to note 
the physical characteristics of Monhegan in the fall 
of 1604, it is equally true that Waymouth was the 
first to land upon its bold shore, and the first to take 
possession. Planting a wooden cross here, he dubbed 
the island St. George, and then he sailed away for 
the shores of Pemaquid where he made the ac- 
quaintance of that "little River of Pemaquid" 
which afforded so delightful a haven. Waymouth 
dropped anchor in Monhegan harbor the seventeenth 
day of May, and it may be said to have been from 



292 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUW 




MONHEGAN CLIFFS 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 293 

that time that the English title and occupancy dates. 
Rosier is the annalist of the voyage, but it is only 
under the shadows of these huge verdurous domes 
of tree-crowned Monhegan, when he has stumbled 
upon the bloom of the strawberry, and the wild rose 
that everywhere along the ledges where the salt 
spray drifts in on the wind, makes, even in these 
iconoclastic days, masses of riant color, does he 
find his speech. This strawberry petal, and the 
dainty trumpet of the gooseberry blossom in this wild 
strange place, are like sounds from home; and so he 
writes of them. Commonplace in old England, here, 
they were something to be recognized and written 
about. From Monhegan, Rosier's account is ram- 
bling, but one is certain that the things he describes, 
he has seen, and he has left it for such as delight in 
argument, whether it be profitable or not, to locate 
the places where these humble things grew, and the 
waters where he sailed, as if it mattered one way or 
the other, when it all happened three hundred years 
ago, and one really knows nothing about it at all. 
The whole thing smacks of the most delightful 
romance; and one can dream about it all, to make 
pictures as the helm shifts, but the hand that held 
the helm of the Archangel, held it so long ago, and 
the quill that scratched its zig-zag courses lost its 
nib so much longer ago, that one concludes with the 
witch of the Hampton Meadows 

" For it's one to go, but another to come." 
It is here in this immediate neighborhood of Mon- 
hegan that one catches the noise of a wordy contro- 



294 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

versy, shut his ears as he will. It seems to be a 
legacy of the ancient conflicts that reigned in this 
vicinity between the French and English, and while 
no court of competent jurisdiction has seemed to 
have been established by which the matter can be 
settled; still like Jarndyce and Jarndyce, it is taken 
out for an occasional airing, and to about as much 
purpose. So fine a strain of humor runs through it 
all, that no matter what is said or written, one is 
always in a forgiving mood. The attempted reduc- 
tion of so uncertain a proposition to a point of 
finesse, is productive of more discomfort than real 
satisfaction, for nothing is irrevocably settled after 
all. To touch upon this controversy for the last 
time in these pages, — it is said that Dr. Belknap 
was the first to moot the question as to the identity 
of St. George's Island. It is not a question of the 
highest importance from the historical, or any other 
point of view; but so scruplous was the studious 
Belknap, and so anxious was he to get at the truth 
of his contention that he hired a skipper, provided 
him with an "abridged copy of Rosier's" and set 
him adrift amid these Monhegan waters. His in- 
structions were to compare Rosier's description, or 
in other words to use it as a divdning rod, with the 
scenery along the coast of a century later. This 
navigator, familiar with the vicinity, sailed away on 
his high emprise, and as he sailed he read, and as he 
read he gazed, not upon the wild scenery of the day 
of Waymouth, but upon the shorn landscape of later 
days. But the waters were here and the hills and 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 295 

the mountains, and he saw with the eyes of Rosier. 
Like the skipper at the antipodes who could locate 
Ma'am Hackett's back-yard by Gloucester Harbor 
by merely scooping up a handful of sea-water for a 
smell, Captain Williams struck the wake of the Arch- 
angel by a phosphorescent streak of wit, good luck, 
or what-not, to follow it into the mouth of the 
Penobscot. He found, metaphorically, Waymouth's 
foot-prints in the olden sands, and he plants the 




MONHEGAN HARBOR 



famous cross again, but he should have brought 
that cross along with his report, for the world is yet 
thronged with the descendants of the doubting 
Thomas. 

His report that the Penobscot was the scene of 
Waymouth's exploration of 1605 was the result 
of his donning the Morman Goggles off Monhegan. 
The fine sense of absurdity, when one is asked to 
accept the dicta of the master of a Government 
cutter, and which pervades this famous procedure, 
seems to have escaped the accomplished Willis when 
he says, — "That conclusion, reached by a process 



296 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

so careful and judicious, satisfied historical inquir- 
ers" for sixty years. What a wake was that of the 
Archangel to have lent its phosphorescent fire to 
the footsteps of Captain Williams, to remind one of 
the miraculous flame by which the Israelites were 
led even to the top of Mount Pisgah. 

No doubt but Captain Williams was water-wise, 
and swift when it came to the inspection of a dere- 
lict. He undoubtedly could smell out a storm as 
well as the Government Weather-makers, but as an 
expert on the Waymouth Voyage, he not unlikely 
got a squint in his off eye which he carried back to 
Boston, and which he turned over to the eminent 
Belknap, who immediately proceeded to incorporate 
it into his goods and chattels, literary and historical, 
and there it has remained to this day, like the bone 
in old Mother Hubbard's cup-board. Was the game 
worth the candle? 

Manifestly, not. 

It must, however, have been a most delightful 
excursion, and one would have liked to have breathed 
with Captain Williams this atmosphere 

"Of all things, old and new." 

In those old days these were beauty spots in 
Nature, for John Angell and Robert Saltern were 
with Gosnold, and were observing men, and as they 
sailed into the wide reach of the Bay of the Penob- 
scot, they not only found better cod than they had 
been able to hook on the Newfoundland Banks, but 
the shores were more convenient for curing. As 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 297 

they came down to Monhegan and sailed four leagues 
further to the west, to Pemaquid Point, they noted 
that these two places were "very pleasant to behold, 
adorned with goodly grapes and sundry sorts of trees, 
as cedars, spruce, pines, and fir trees." In those 
days, it may be well to mention, that this island had 
another name. It was as often designated E. mme- 
tinic when the fishing stages were first set up here; 
as Monhegan, and by which name the island was 
more anciently known. The origin as well as the 
derivation of E. mmetinic is obscure, but the name 
has come down, and one meets it, here or there, as 
some annalist of the seventeenth century essays to 
locate some episode of those early years which had 
its setting in the neighborhood, or about the neigh- 
boring waters. 

It matters not as to that, for since about noon of 
the 17th of May in the year 1605, when Waymouth 
made Monhegan harbor, dropping his anchor a league 
off-shore on the north side of the island, under a 
serene sky, the history of the island and the adjacent 
mainland goes on with ever increasing flood to its 
culmination, when Monhegan is as devoid of humanity 
or human association, as it was before Smith's 
voyage of 1614, when he found it a comparatively 
busy locality, while the adjoining waters were dotted 
with ships laden with fish and furs, according to the 
abundance of the commodity at hand; but fish were 
to be had in plenty for the catching. 

With Weymouth safely in England, Gorges and 
Popham began their preparations for a colony at the 



298 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

mouth of the Sagadahoc. It was on the last day of 
May, 1607, that the Gift, and the Mary and John 
sailed out of Plymouth Harbor, and it was on the 
morning of the 17th of the following August, that the 
Mary and John dropped anchor in the harbor of 
Monhegan. Here she waited until afternoon, when 
she had her anchors up for a shift of berth on the 
mainland near Pemaquid Point, and out of the mists 
to seaward broke the Gift. Letting go her anchors, 




FISH FLAKES 



she waited until her sister ship had come up, when it 
was decided to keep the Monhegan harbor over night. 
These ships lay here over the next day, Saturday, 
and on the 9th, Sunday, "the chief of both the shipps, 
with the greatest part of the company, landed on the 
island where the crosse stood, the which they called 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 299 

St. George's Island, and heard a sermon delivered 
unto them by Mr. Seymour, his preacher, and soe 
came abourd againe." 

Assuming that Monhegan is the identical St. 
George alluded to by Strachey, here was the first 
consecration of the island to religious civilization . 
It was an important event, and by itself is a stake 
at the corner of the fence by which the boundary lines 
of events to come may be run. It marked the begin- 
ning of an epoch, that, with varying fortune, has 
followed the trend of the years down through the 
vicissitudes of old Pilgrim Plymouth, to the present 
day. It was the planting of the bulwark of the 
church in a tradition that has found its way into 
every relation of the events of those early days. 
The ships rode in Monhegan harbor until the 12th, 
when they "weyed anchors and sett saile to go for 
the river of Sachadehoc." Just where they landed 
for that Sunday service has never been designated; 
but, that Monhegan was the rendezvous for the 
Gift, and the Mary and John, agreed upon before 
leaving Plymouth, is evident from the fact that their 
courses, sailed considerably apart after leaving the 
Azores, converged at this island, and that they 
came together within a day's space within its harbor. 
Captain Robert Davies, the pilot of the Mary and 
John, was one of the landing party of the island, and 
it was he who sailed the Mary and John back to 
England later in the season. Captain Harlow, as 
well, listened to the sermon of the Rev. Mr. Seymour, 
and he was again here in 1611, — the same, of whom 



300 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Strachey says, "who brought away the salvadges at 
this time shewed in London, from the river of 
Canada." He was the Master of Ordnance in the 
Popham Expedition, and it was Harlow whose 
Relation notes that the so "frozen a winter," and the 
scarcity of food, "sent all back to England but forty- 
five," of that colony. What became of these 
"forty-five" has been an obscure question, but it 
has been the thread upon which the romance of New 
Harbor has been ever since strung. The traditions 
of 1609 gathered from French sources have already 
been alluded to. 

It was three years later that Captain John Smith 
came here, and he says of the environment of Mon- 
hegan, that it is "among the remarkablest lies and 
Mountaines, for land markes." He paints it as a 
"round high He, and close by it Monanis, betwixt 
which, is a small Harbour." It was in this harbor 
his ship lay while he went on that famous trading 
voyage whereby he accumulated so great a store of 
fine furs "for trifles." One of the results of Smith's 
voyage was a map which he drew and presented to 
Prince Charles. Monhegan appears upon it, and to 
which Charles gave the name of Battles Isle. No 
significance has attached to this designation, except 
that it had a royal origin, and despite which, Mon- 
hegan it has ever been, and as such it is like to remain. 

It was the year before the first voyage of Smith, 
that freebooter Argall, like a bird of prey, to remind 
one of a Virginia buzzard, made a circle of these 
Monhegan shores to here drop the anchor of the good 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 303 

ship, Treasurer, for a little space. It was at this 
time he raided the settlements of the French colony 
on the St. Croix, and up the Bay of Fundy, and 
destroyed the Jesuit Mission at Mont Desert, killing 
Peter DuThet and after the most approved piratical 
fashion, filling his ship with ill-gotten plunder. 
Argall evidently did not find the island of Monhegan 
deserted, and it is probable that even at this time, 
there were straggling fishing-huts and stages here, 
and on the Pemaquid mainland. It would not be 
essential to the maintenance of such that here should 
be a permanent occupancy, but from the coming of 
Popham and Gilbert, vessels came here after cod and 
furs. The French had been settled on the Annapolis 
shore almost a decade, and had been doing a thriving, 
as well as a lucrative business with the savages, and 
on the sea, and it is not to be admitted for a moment 
that the English were less bold or enterprising in their 
maritime pursuits, with the knowledge possessed by 
them of these parts, and the rich harvests that 
awaited them here. It is doubtful if Argall would 
have had his attention drawn to the French colonies 
on the Penobscot and about the mouth of the St. 
Croix had there not been some English occupation 
of these parts. His information concerning these 
prosperous settlements of Arcadia must have been 
derived from the sailing vessels that came first to 
Monhegan for a bit of trade, and which afterward 
sailed for Virginia for a bale of tobacco, or a passenger 
home. Argall was apparently well informed of the 
number and location of the French settlements, 



304 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

for he found them all, from that one ensconced among 
the shadows of the Penobscot hemlocks, to furthest 
Port Royal sunning itself beside the Minas Waters. 

The coming hither of Smith in 1614 was an impor- 
tant event in the history of Monhegan. He had 
resigned his Governorship of Virginia and hardly 
sailed up the Thames, before he had taken command 
of an expedition for the taking of whales, "and also 
to make trials of a mine of gold and copper; if those 
failed, fish and furs were then their refuge. Once 
here, whales were to be found in abundance, but 
Smith's crew were not able to take any; for they 
were of the lean sort; "a kind of jubartes, " and 
not yielders of the commercial fins and oil; nor were 
there any mines. Then began his explorations up 
and down the coast in his boat with eight of his 
crew. He kept to the shores, of which, as he went, 
he made charts, copies of which, on his return to 
England, were scattered among the numerous sea- 
ports for the purpose of stimulating trade to these 
new fields of action. He was the prophet John who 
had traversed the new world's wilderness of waters, 
scanned its wild shores, to afterward preach the 
gospel of its occupation and improvement. Probably 
to him, more than any other, is due the credit of 
arousing a popular interest, and of originating the 
true propaganda of colonization. He was a saga- 
cious observer, analyzer and forecaster of the oppor- 
tunities, industrial needs, and immense profits to 
be had in the immediate getting of footholds at 
salient points along the Maine Coast. He urged 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 305 

the planting of colonies, and his argument was 
that, "Adam and Eve did first begin this innocent 
work to plant, that Noe and his family began the 
second plantation, and that had our Saviour Christ 
and his apostles exposed themselves to no more 
dangers than we, even we ourselves, had, at this 
present, been as salvage yet uncivilized." 

Hakluyt was a dreamer, a retailer of fables, a 
wide-mouthed hopper into which the olla podrida 
of fact and fancy was poured to be ground into 
romances for the credulous and the greedy, the 
dregs of which were bitter with disappointment 
and disaster. All waters were alike to him, and 
their blend was like the wine of Cana. What 
followed was more marvellous than that which had 
gone before, and it was left for Smith to tell the 
truth, that of mines of gold and precious stones, 
there were none; but of fish and furs there were even 
greater riches. He had the prophetic eye, and be 
saw down the long years the white sails of ships 
crowding the harbors from Monhegan to the Isles 
of Shoals, vieing each with the other in the reaping 
of this harvest of the seas; for, he said, "Scarce any- 
one will go beyond the port they fish in, within a 
square of three leagues, where five hundred sail 
may have freight." 

It was right here at Monhegan where Smith for- 
mulated this valuable and afterward prolific opinion 
of the wealth of these, and the neighboring waters, 
and where he at the same time found the Popham ship 
possessing a monopoly of the local trade. Mon- 



306 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

hegan was a part of the Pemaquid dependancy, 
and Smith says, "a hundred fish from its waters, 
were, in marketable worth, equal to two hundred 
of the eastern catch, with half the labor in curing, 
and a whole voyage in season, earlier." He remarks 
it to be, "the strangest fishpond ever seen. The 
coast mountainous, and isles of huge rocks, over- 
grown with most sorts of excellent good woods, 
for house-building, the building of boats, barks of 
ships, with incredible abundance of most sorts of 
fish, much fowl, and sundry good fruits, a region 
where the natives take and kill most of their otter." 
He says nothing of a sea-way to Cathay, as does the 
enthusiastic George Popham who had pitched his 
brief stay on Hunnewell's beach, where, 

"Out and in the river is winding 
The links of its watery chain 
Through belts of dusky pine-land 
And gusty leagues of plain ; " 

whose outlook over the way he came was the wide 
expanse of the blue water, while behind, toward the 
Crystal Hills, there was 

"Only at times, a smoke-wreath, 

from the hunting-lodges of Samoset. like Hakluyt, 
Popham was a dreamer, and not a seer. 

This notable island along with the lofty domes 
of vert Mont Desert lay directly in the way of navi- 
gators coming to this part of the coast. Willis 
says, "It was the headquarters for all; the ship 
news from all parts was gathered here; it was the 



Y^ ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQU1D 307 




308 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

refuge for the unfortunates on the whole coast, 
and was probably permanently occupied before 
Plymouth was settled, though by a changing popula- 
tion, mere sojourners or casual visitors rather than 
by colonists," Smith was peculiarly pleased with 
the locality, and had he been able to have made a 
profitable venture of his whaling expedition, he 
would have colonized the island. There is soil of 
exceeding fertility on Monhegan in these days, to 
be but slenderly cultivated by the inhabitants, 
who follow the pursuits of their fathers before them, 
by casting their nets. Smith notes, "I made a 
garden upon its tops (Monhegan) in May, that 
grew so well, as it served us for sallets (salads) in 
June and July." From this can be gathered the 
length of his anchorage here. The time of his 
coming he notes, — "In the month of April, 1614, 
with the ships (apparently other voyagers had 
fallen in with him on the way), from London, I 
chanced to arrive at Monhegan, an Isle of America 
in 43 degrees and 4 minutes northeasterly Latitude." 
Smith went back to England, freighted with fish 
and furs. The next year, he engaged with Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges and Dr. Sutcliff of London, to 
make a trading voyage hither in company with 
Captain Dermer. Some considerable time was taken 
in fitting out their ships and the start was not made 
until the spring of 1616. They sailed down the 
Thames and were hardly out of sight of Southamp- 
ton before a fierce gale swooped down upon them. 
Smith's ship strained a mast which compelled him to 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 309 

put back to port, while Dermer rode out the tempest, 
and kept on to the end of his voyage. He sailed 
direct to Monhegan, where, by reason of Smith's 
having "made an arrangement with a proud savage, 
and one of the greatest lords among them, Nahan- 
ada," on his voyage of 1614, he was able to return 
home with a heavy lading of furs. In this way he 
was able to take advantage of the Popham trade, 
which was then going on at Pemaquid. The year 
before this voyage of Dermer's, two ships from Lon- 
don and six from Plymouth had sailed for Popham's 
port. It was this same year that Sir Richard Haw- 
kins was here in the interest of the Plymouth Com- 
pany. He was followed by the Nancheen, whose 
master was one Brawnde. The Nancheen made 
Seguin April 20th, and Monhegan the 24th. Hawkin 
summarily sequestered the boats of the Nancheen, 
so that Brawnde was obliged to change his berth 
opposite another island where he set about building 
other boats, by which his voyage was much delayed 
and his profits lessened. The Nancheen had a con- 
siderable freight over for the local trade which 
was to be transferred to a pinnace which was to 
make a rendezvous in the vicinity of the Damaris- 
cove Islands, but the smaller craft did not arrive 
until June, and then only to fall upon the rocks, a 
wreck. Brawnde wrote home while here, "that 
great voyages in fish and furs could be made here, if 
not spoiled by too many factors, and bad faith with 
the Indians." 

Shortly after the coming of the Nancheen, Haw- 



310 YE ROMANCE OF OLD** PEMAQUID 



kins sailed away to Virginia, and Brawnde was left 
to do the best he could to retrieve his losses. The 
next year, that in which Thomas Dermer made his 
voyage, Monhegan was visited by as many as twenty- 
four ships. Its dancing waters were dotted with the 
white sails of the English fishermen and the boats of 
the cod-catchers. It was a lively scene, and it came 
about that the immediate result of the Dermer ven- 




THE LITTLE CHURCH ON MONHEGAN 

ture was a nucleus of homesteads along the fringe 
of Monhegan harbor, of which Gorges may have 
the credit of being the founder. At New Harbor it 
is supposed there had been for some time quite a 
settlement; for, Smith says at the time of his 1614 
voyage, "Right on the main against us, Sir Francis 
Popham's ship was in; and had such acquaintance, 
having used that port only for many years, that most 
part of the trade was there had by him;" and so he 
went to making gardens with that outcropping of 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 311 

the English instinct, and building boats, of which he 
launched as many as seven. His energy could have 
no other than a quickening influence among the 
men who stood for the commerce of London, and his 
reference to Popham is suggestive of the activities of 
the heir-at-law of the Popham estate. 

Ships came and went, and Monhegan grew in cor- 
responding importance; so, that, when Captain 
Edward Rocroft, in 1618, sailed one of Gorges' ships 
over, upon a fishing trip, and was compelled to 
maroon a portion of his crew at the mouth of the 
Sawguatock (Saco) by reason of their insubordi- 
nation, giving to them, however, their guns, they 
made their course overland to Monhegan, where 
"they remained all that winter (1618-19) with bad 
lodging and worse fare." These sailors of Rocroft's 
mark the first authentic passage of a winter on this 
coast after the exodus of Gilbert and his planters 
from the fort at the mouth of the Sagadahoc. 

It was in the spring of 1619 that Dermer made a 
second voyage to Monhegan, where he discovered 
these winter dwellers. Not long before this there had 
been a great warfare among the savages which had 
resulted in the practical extinction of the Wawe- 
nocks, and it was on this voyage that Dermer, in a 
pinnace of "five tons burden," sailed south-westerly 
on the 27th of May, where he located "some ancient 
(Indian) Plantations not long since populous, now 
utterly void." He found remnants of savage tribes 
in other places, and at one Indian village he found 
two French sailors, who, some three years earlier, 



312 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

had "escaped shipwreck at the north east of Cape 
Cod." He carried them aboard his pinnace and 
brought them along to Monhegan. In less than two 
months, his two-hundred ton ship was loaded with 
fish and furs, and with thirty-eight men, he set sail 
for the home port. Dermer left none of his men 
here, but according to Mourt's Relations, Samoset 
tells a story of there being Englishmen here, five of 
whom, in the late spring of 1620, wandered into the 
woods toward Cape Cod, and of whom the savages 
killed three. The other two escaped to Monhegan 
Island. Monhegan was certainly well and generally 
known as a place where English vessels might be 
found most of the year. It was here that Sanders, 
in 1623, came for bread with which to supply the 
starving men of Weston's Company, and many of 
whom came here to ship for England in their desire 
to get away from so many hardships. Dermer was 
observant, and he notes the jealousy of the Indian, 
that "now almost everywhere, where the savages 
were of any strength, they sought to betray us." 
The kidnapping raid of Hunt was not so far away as 
to have become a tradition, and the treachery of that 
single Englishman was to be paid for later. What- 
ever else the savage did, he never forgot an injury. 

Up to this point, the story of Monhegan has been 
associated with ships and fishermen, and fishing-stages, 
but in the year 1622, one Abraham Jennings procured 
a grant of the island from the Plymouth Council, 
and it is from that date, that Monhegan takes its 
place among the pioneer settlements of this part of 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 313 

the New England coast. It had been for a half- 
dozen years what may be called the first of the Gorges 
plantations in what afterward became the Province 
of Maine. Jennings promoted trade here for two 
years, and then sold out his interest to two Bristol 
merchants, Aids worth and Elbridge, for whom the 
first • American conveyancer, Abraham Shurt, or 
Short, acted as purchasing agent. Under Shurt's 
active hand Monhegan grew in size and importance, 
until, in 1629, his Bristol principals procured a 
grant from the Council of Plymouth for twelve 
thousand acres of Pemaquid, the boundary of which 
included three leagues of the seashore. So it came 
about, that here, at Pemaquid, was the beginning 
of the earliest permanent settlement within the now 
state limits. After John Brown took his deed from 
Samoset, and Shurt had located the Aids worth and 
Elbridge Patent, and had begun the foundations of 
the Pemaquid settlement, the exodus from Monhe- 
gan began, but this was not until about 1630. Up to 
that time Monhegan maintained its importance as a 
storehouse of supplies for the needy colonies to the 
southward as far as Cape Cod. The Plymouth folk 
sent in 1623 for food, as well as other settlers. Here 
was a well-recognized depot of trade; and in 1625 
the Plymouth Colony sent a ship-load of corn into 
this vicinity to exchange for furs. Edward Winslow 
was in command and sailed up the Kennebec, where 
he disposed of his cargo. The Plymouth colony had 
passed the crisis of its career, and had turned trader 
on its own account. 



314 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

It was the year that marked the coming of John 
Brown, 1623, and when the fame of Pemaquid's 
natural resources was being noised about England, 
that Christopher Levett, fired with an ambition to go 
forth into strange lands and build a city for himself, 
set sail, bending his ship's prow across the Atlantic, 
to run plumply into the Isle of Shoals; for, he says 
at the outset of his tale of his voyage into New Eng- 
land, — "The first place I set my foot upon in New 
England, was the Isle of Shoulds, — " and after 
which he came down the coast, prospecting, and 
taking note of its pleasant places, its inlets and bays, 
until he has reached the domain of Samoset. He 
says of the Sagadahoc, — "I need say nothing of it, 
there hath been heretofore enough said by others, 
and I fear me too much. But the place is good." 
Levett's disposition was for Pemaquid, but the ground 
was pre-empted before him, so he was obliged to 
return to Casco Bay, where he built that year (1623-4) . 
This was by reason of his having heard that " Pema- 
quid and Capemanwagen and Monhiggon were 
granted to others, " and as well because one Wither- 
idge, a Barnstaple shipmaster, had possessed him- 
self of the Pemaquid country for trade. Those were 
days of sharp competition in picking up the choice 
places for colonization, as witness the story of the 
Plymouth colony, which according to Morton's 
New England Memorial written in 1669, was the 
result of a plot between some Dutch merchants 
who bribed the sailing-master of the Mayflower to 
drop them at any other place than about the shores 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 317 

of the Hudson River where they had been offered 
a patent by the Virginia Company, and previous to 
their departure from Holland. 

Here is what Morton says, and while it may not be 
regarded as germane to the story of Monhegan, it is 
of interest to the student of pioneer history, and as 
having reference to the beginnings at Cape Cod. 
He says: 

"Nevertheless, it is to be observed, that their 
putting into this place was partly by reason of a 
storm, by which they were forced in, but more 
especially by the fraudulency and contrivance of 
the aforesaid Mr. Jones, the master of the ship; for 
their intentions and this engagement was to Hudson's 
River, but some of the Dutch having notice of their 
intentions, and having thoughts about the same time 
of erecting a plantation there likewise, they fraudu- 
lently hired the said Jones, by delays while they were 
in England, and now under pretence of the shoals, etc., 
to disappoint them in their going thither. Of this 
plot betwixt the Dutch and Mr. Jones, I have had 
late and certain intelligence. . . . Being thus fraud- 
ulently dealt with, and brought so far to the north- 
ward, the season being sharp, and no hopes of obtain- 
ing their intended port, and thereby their patent being 
made void and useless, as to another, etc. " 

It was for this reason that the colonists of Plymouth 
were compelled to coast down to Monhegan for sup- 
plies, and it was fortunate for the existence of the 
colony that they were able to procure them there, 
otherwise the Plymouth colony might have been 



318 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

forced elsewhere and the story of the Puritan New 
England have been much different. Read it as one 
may, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay laid the 
foundations of the political and material prosperity 
of olden New England, and it is a felicitious incident 
in the history of Monhegan that this old landmark 




MONHEGAN LIGHT 



was able to have been of so helpful assistance to its 
struggling neighbor in the time of her extremity. 
Later annalists have somewhat resented the fact, 
but it was true and is not to be disputed. 

Richard Mather was here in 1635, at which time 
he writes of "Mnhiggin," as "an Hand without in- 
habitants." At that time the settlement on Pema- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 319 

quid founded by Abraham Shurt was attracting to 
itself the trade of the coast. It was at the threshold 
of a career of notable prosperity. The settlers were 
taking on gregarious habits and the times were 
plastic. The harbor was thronged with the sails of 
vessels coming and going, and of one of these, a 
small craft bound from Pascataqua to Pemaquid was 
caught in a winter gale, 1641, and driven upon Mon- 
hegan. The pinnace was wrecked on the inhospit- 
able rocks. Of the crew, four died from exposure 
to the winter storm, while the remaining four got to 
land and took refuge in the deserted huts of those 
who formerly lived on the island, and where, after 
some time, they were discovered by a passing fisher- 
man and taken to Pemaquid. As one sails past 
Monhegan of a pleasant summer day, one hardly 
remembers this lone disaster of its early years, but 
it is different as one looks out upon the rack of the 
sleety storm from its highest ledge; for in the shriek- 
ing of the tempest, there are sounds of the crashing 
of a hundred ships against its gray walls, and one 
sees the tragedy wrought anew, when, 



"Colder and louder blew the wind, 

A gale from the Northeast, 
The snow fell hissing in the brine, 

And the billows frothed like yeast. 

"Down came the storm, and smote amain, 
The vessel in its strength; 
She shuddered and paused, like a frightened steed, 
Then leaped her cable's length," 



320 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

and the gloomy bastions of this Nature fortress 
loomed more loftily from amid the black drift, 

"And ever the fitful gusts between 
A sound came from the land; 
It was the sound of trampling surf," 

on the jagged scrap at the foot of the beetling cliffs; 
but the oaken ribs of the Pascataqua ship were 
ground to shreds long ago by the tides. The storm 
has blown, and the suggestion of the phantom sail 
is but the sweep of a sea-gull's wing; the rack of the 
gale, but the cool gray shadow of a rain-spattering 
cloud; and the howling of the wind, the whisper of 
a light-footed zepher. 

March 12th, 1664-5 Charles the Second gave to 
his brother, James, the Duke of York, the territory 
between the St. Croix and Kennebec Rivers, but 
owing to the discouraging and scandalous report of 
the Royal Commissioners, he did not assume any 
more control over the country than to establish a 
Court at Pemaquid, and which was convened in the 
house of one John Mason where the settlers came to 
take the oath of allegiance to the new authorities. 
No one appeared from Monhegan at this time, 
although the island possessed a considerable 
population. 

In 1672 the settlers about the Sagadahoc waters 
and adjoining Pemaquid on the east including Mon- 
hegan, petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts, 
on account of the laxity of government thereabout, 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 321 

to be annexed to that jurisdiction. On the 27th of 
May, 1674, the General Court issued a Commission 
creating the Pemaquid country into the County of 
Devon. A tax was laid or assessed upon the County 
of twenty pounds. Monhegan was a party to the 
original petition with eighteen signers, of whom 
Richard Oliver was one, and of this tax five pounds 
and ten shillings were apportioned to that island, 
and which is suggestive of the renewed importance of 
Monhegan as a commercial station. Richard Oliver 
of Monhegan was made Clerk of the Writs, and of 
the four Commissioners for the County two were 
from the island. Two years later came the Indian 
outbreak, and the folk on the island could look 
across the water to the mainland and count the 
smokes of the burning houses, unharmed. Later the 
situation became more perilous, and they betook 
themselves to their ships and sailed away to Boston 
and Salem. 

Then came the building of Fort Charles at Pema- 
quid, and the settlers began to return gradually. 
The destruction of these eastern settlements, 1676, 
the escape of many of the settlers to New York in 
the Government sloop, the information that came 
through them to the ears of the Duke's officials there, 
that Pemaquid and its dependancies had requested 
the General Court of its Puritan neighbor to sit over 
a little and make room by the Puritan fire, and 
further, that the Puritans had actually taken juris- 
diction, established a court and levied taxes, be- 
stirred the Duke's New York Council to send a 



322 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



Commission into that country to assert the authority 
of royalty. 

The Commissioners came, made peace with the 
Indians, changed the name of the County to Corn- 
wall, built Fort Charles and garrisoned it, estab- 




THE LIGHTHOUSE 

lished a custom-house, made regulations for trading 
with the savages, and as the most drastic of their 
proceedings, set up the Duke of York 's ownership of 
the soil under the charter of Charles II., disregard- 
ing all prior patents, and required of the settlers that 
they pay a quit-rent of one shilling annually for 
each one hundred acres actually occupied or im- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 323 

proved. It was under this onerous system of hold- 
ings in these days of the Duke's supremacy that 
one John Dalling of Monhegan was leased a "parcel 
of land" of an indefinite area, upon that island, and 
for which he was to pay "yearly and every year" a 
full bushel of merchantable wheat, or its equiva- 
lent value in coin of the realm. 

But these lessees of their former titles were dila- 
tory and often in arrears. The custom-house trans- 
acted some business, but the smugglers did the 
better, and they brought supplies to the settlers 
and the Indians, in fact to anyone who had a dis- 
position to evade the excise officers. The fishermen 
were all smugglers when the opportunity afforded, 
and the extent of the coast precluded any extensive 
or systematic enforcement of the heavy fees exacted, 
from a vessel with a deck to an open boat, the only 
furniture of which was a pair of oars. 

One John Palmer was installed here in 1686, with 
"full power and authority to treate with the Inhabi- 
tants for takeing out Pattents and Paying the quitt- 
rents. " He is as well known as Judge, and fre- 
quently as Deputy-Governor Palmer. He granted 
the lease to Dalling of the land on Monhegan. His 
most notable exploit was the seizure of a cargo of 
Baron St. Castine's wine within the debatable 
territory of the Penobscot. The cargo comprised 
seventy pipes of Malaga, one of brandy, two of oil, 
and seventeen barrels of fruit. It became an inter- 
national question, and the ship and its cargo were 
restored to St. Castine. 



324 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

The Duke of York had become James II., and these 
Pemaquid lands, as well as all that country between 
the Kennebec and the St. Croix, were covered into 
the Crown. The Ducal proprietorship had merged into 
a sovereignty, and, in 1686, New England and New 
York became merged under the jurisdiction of Sir 
Edmund Andros, Governor-General. Palmer became 




THE FOG BELL 



one of his Councillors. Joseph Dudley became presi- 
dent of the provisional jurisdiction of Massachusetts, 
New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island. Under 
this new administration matters grew rapidly worse, 
the culmination of which, after playing the tyrant 
in Virginia to become more odious in Boston, was the 
arrest and confinement in the common gaol of that 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 325 

town, of Andros and his creatures, and his transfer 
to England for trial, in the year 1689, and this may be 
said to round out the story of the pioneer settlement 
of Monhegan. It was a famous rendezvous in its 
earliest days, and as one recalls them, one can credit 
James Rosier as being the first vender of fish-stories. 
Here is one of his earliest, but perhaps not his best. 
Waymouth had come to an anchorage in Monhegan 
harbor, and it was in May, just the time when a man 
thinks of going a-fishing, that is if there are not too 
many notices posted along the brooks. Rosier says 
it was of a Saturday. He may have made a mistake, 
for nowadays fish are supposed to bite best of a 
Sunday, or rather, that is when most of the Wal- 
tonians essay the gentle art. It was of a Saturday, 
surely, because Rosier says it was, and who ever 
knew a fisherman to tell an untruth! and he dodges 
it by putting it off to the other fellow. He says, 
"one of the mates, with two hooks at a lead, at five 
draughts together hauled up ten fishes. All were 
generally very great, some they measured to be five 
feet long and three feet about. " 

There is little of romance attaching to Monhegan, 
except that which the dawn hangs to the north, 
east, south and west along the horizon of the illimi- 
table ocean waste, or island, bay or shore, — all 
once familiar to Weymouth and Champlain, as well 
as to those who came after. Its traditions are 
meagre, and its life, once strenuous, has faded beneath 
the soft touch of Nature along the slopes of the ancient 
grave-yard that overlooks the sea, — softly asleep 



326 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

in the summer sunlight, or gently tremulous under 
the throb of the storm-driven waters pounding the 
eternal ledges. 

From a scenic point of view, Monhegan is more 
than picturesque. It is magnificently grand. Here 
is a Golden Isle, a Garden of the Gods; for whether 
the winds blow in, dripping wet with the drizzle 




AN ANCIENT HOUSE 



of the Penobscot fogs or the slant rain of the storm, 
or whether they are deliciously moist and scintillat- 
ing with the unadulterated sunshine, they are ever 
cool, sweet, fresh and invigorating, and savory with 
the incomparable odors of the snowy blossoms that 
are in bloom wherever the white-caps break. Nor is 
there much here to remind one of Monhegan's ancient- 
ness, unless it may be the quaint gable of some fisher's 
dwelling. The fisherman, modernly human, smacks 
of the essence of the island in its elder days before 
ever the roof of the summer cottager intruded upon 
its traditions. But these roofs of red lend a pleasing 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 327 

color, nor are the Cabot-stained walls at all obtrusive, 
while the low-browed verandas are suggestive of the 
glamour of the seashore as is the sea itself. They are 
but outlooks for the summer idler and the dreamer. 
But Monhegan is not as yet a typical summer resort. 
It is largely old Monhegan to-day, and it is to be 




THE "HAUNTED HOUSE" 

hoped that such it will remain, one of the choice 
samplers of Nature of which 

"hundred harbored Maine," 

has so many, with the singing waters all about; and 
what pictures, where, 

Seaward, the fisher drops his line, 

The white gulls dipping, skimming 
Beyond the scarp of Pemaquid, 

The wide horizon rimming, 
Where fogs steal down the Bay of Maine 

The capes and dunes fast gaining, 
To choke the chimney-smokes, and beat 

Their roofs with flail of raining! 



328 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

The gale across Mariana's ledge 

The sleet drives, sharp and bitter; 
Boom — BOOM — along its jagged face 

The breakers flash and glitter 
Within their winding-sheet of mist, 

Their thunder inland blowing, 
Where marks, the tolling bell, the rain 

With gusty pulse its going. 

Monhegan is a delightful outlook from which to 
watch the approach of a summer shower, and we 
wait outside until the first drops smite the face, and 
then we go in to paint anew the ecstasy of that 
touch of Nature. 

We felt the wet mist on our face, 

From off the inland harbor blown; 
We saw the white sail downward race 

Across the bay with white-caps strown, 
Where, far away, Newaggen's pines 
Loomed stark and tall, their black outlines 
Sharp-drawn against a narrow azure bar 
That held the gateway of the sky ajar. 

Still loom the huge cliffs of La Nef above the 
tides around which the mystery of the long-gone 
days hovers, as intangible as the summer airs. 
Their feet swathed in deeps of waters, the shadows 
trace the cross of Waymouth along their swart 
sides and against the horizon is painted a ghostly 
sail, while the fisher, unheeding plies his glancing 
oar. 

So the summer days here, as elsewhere come and 
go, each better than the one that went before, — the 
poetry of living, and, as well, of perfect repose. There 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 329 

s no room here for the littlenesses of human-kind. 
Nature is laid out upon too generous and too gigantic 
a plan, and allied to it all, is an unmatchable grandeur. 
It is the peer of Mont Desert, and when one has said 
so much as that, the book is closed. 




SHEEPSCOT 







// «" ; 



THE KING'S HIGHWAY 



SHEEPSCOT 



S one goes through certain 
parts of Old England, letting 
alone its great metropolis 
with its London Wall, one 
can trace the foot-prints of the 
first Caesar; and as one saun- 
ters over the beautiful slopes 
of what was once known as 
Sheepscott Farms, one sees 
there the traces of a former 
civilization. The stone walls 
and mural relics designate 
barbaric days along the English green, but, here 
along the near banks of the Kennebec, and upon 
the shores of the Sheepscot stream are mural remains 
that, as yet, have not been definitely located in point 
of time, except they are supposed to have been the 
handiwork of the settlers who came here shortly after 

333 




334 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the opening up of these lands by Abraham Shurt. If 
one could but find something in the way of an 
ancient record to afford a single clue, but that seems 
to be a futile desire. There are no records of this 
one of the earliest settlements, — they are supposed to 
have been destroyed by fire. That such once existed 
is not to be doubted but whether they would have 




thrown any light upon the results of the casual 
excavations, and the quaint and curious revelations 
of a methodic people who lived in great houses with 
stone foundations and tiled cellar-floors, and upon 
streets long and wide, and decorated with ornamented 
gateways, and the alignment of ancient cellars still 
to be distinguished, is a question. If one could only 
see the ancient mill-wheel in place just below the 
dam one traces plainly, and listen a bit to its song, 
one might, by a liberal translation, achieve some- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 335 

thing of satisfaction. There is nothing strange in 
the existence of these relics, or at least there would 
not be, were they elsewhere, but inland on Sheepscot 
Neck is quite an unusual place, when no one is able 
to relate anything of this old village, either by 
tradition or otherwise. It is a place with a history, 
but that history is buried like the old stone floors 
here about. It is true that when Indians came 
down from the wilds of the Penobscot in 1690 there 
was nothing left of the strenuous labors of the pio- 
neers of the early days from 1626 to the later date. 
Everything was swept away, and until about 1713 
these Eastern lands were left to the occupancy of 
their aboriginal tenants; and for a space of a 
generation later the times were so uneasy as not to 
allow of stability of events current, or any special 
forecasting of permanency; so, it was not in that 
uncertain period that these evidences of a substantial 
town could have been collected; and since which, 
no such aggregation of dwellings, so far to the east- 
ward, could have been collected without some 
curious annalist to keep a record of so surprising a 
civilization. Even Pemaquid, the once metropolis 
of Eastern pioneer commerce, does not show a like 
development, for all its paved streets and fort ruins. 
This romance of olden Shipscott, comes within the 
line of antiquarian research, but despite all research, 
it is a romance still, and without a shred of tradition 
upon which to hang out one's wash. Much has been 
written, gleaned from the ancient chroniclers. Wil- 
liamson is prolific, but as to the mural "remains" 



336 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

he is unsatisfactory. That, he leaves as obscure as 
when he essayed the first word. As to any definite 
statement of time when the ruins, which at the 
beginning of the nineteenth century were plainly 
discernible, were begun, or of the period during 
which they were approaching their • solidarity as 
homes for their builders, one has nothing. In a 




BASIN BELOW SHEEPSCOT FALLS 



matter of this kind it is easy to conjecture, but 
conjectures are like soap-bubbles, blown with a 
breath. This old settlement was on a neck of land, 
and it ran its entire length on the Sheepscot River 
and formed its eastern shore. The settlement began 
below what is now Sheepscot Bridge, and it extended 
perhaps a mile to its lowermost point. Opposite, 
at the mouth of the east branch of the Sheepscot is 
Burnt Island, and a little above the Falls of the 



YE ROMANCE OF Ohm PEMAQUID 337 

main waters of the Sheepscot is Dyer's Neck. Its 
actual location is the southwest extremity of New 
Castle; and across the water in the same direction, 
is the north-east corner of Wiscasset. If one sails 
out to Seguin, a course a little east of north will 
take one into the mouth of the Sheepscot River, 
which keeps about the same course inland, holding 
deep water even to Wiscasset. It is a beautiful 
stream, whether one goes up or down, for it is a 
broadly outspread water-way, rimmed with jagged 
masses of granite, or smoothed gradually shoreward 
by acres of marsh-grasses, while before, or behind, 
is the apparently interminable stretch of the tide. 
It is well worth the dilatory passage by sail-boat, 
so pleasurable are the impressions one gets from 
the constantly varying pictures that break upon 
the vision with every boat's length ahead. With 
every changing point of view there is something new, 
a jutting spur of gray rock, hooded with dusky 
pines, or the lively verdure of the deciduous woods, 
else barren and stark like a huge rib from which the 
elements have plucked its vesture of living green. 
Drowsy inlets, sleep-distilling cups, coves or indents, 
break the continous ripple of the ebb or flood that 
bends to the sinuous shores on either side. 

One begins to note the progress of the journey to 
Sheepscot Farms at Griffith's head, and which is the 
western lintel of the river gateway, and which, just 
here, makes a span of three miles. With a twist of 
the helm and the wind abaft, or south by west one 
hears the churning of the water against the stem and 



338 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the spray flies in broken sheets. Cape Newagen, 
with the outlying Cuckolds, makes the eastern portal, 
and as to their physical disposition, they are as 
opposite as the two posts of a gate. Over the thresh- 
old as it were, one passes Eb-nee-cook, and Indian- 
town toward the sunrise, and on the other hand is 
Macmahan's Island that bars the inlet into Robin 
Hood Cove. On the right is a string of islands from 




THE MOUTH OF THE OVENS 



the size of a rock-heap to something larger, that lead 
up to Sawyer's and Barter's Islands. Old Sagada- 
hoc Island, the present Georgetown, and the old Sasa- 
noa of Champlain have been left on the west. At the 
upper end of Barter's Island, ten miles from Cape 
Newagen, Cross River seems to have split the Sheeps- 
cot in twain and to have taken a full half of its width 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 339 

over into the Oven's Mouth to lend its picturesqueness 
to north Boothbay, while the Sheepscot narrows as 
it passes between ancient Squam Island to the west 
and Edgecomb on the east, to almost a third of its 
former volume. It is a five-mile sail through rugged 
landscapes, beset with the seamed walls and granite 
facings of beetling palisadoes, huge frowning stacks 
of rock, to Decker's Narrows, when there is a swift 
change in the mise en scene, for the stream bends 
squarely to the west to widen out somewhat opposite 
the site of old Fort Edgecomb. 

Edgecomb has followed our sail all the way up from 
the Oven Mouth. Making this sharp turn, one is at 
the entrance into Wiscasset Bay. Here is a sheet of 
inland water environed by scenery of surpassing 
beauty. The shores are broken and roll away 
toward the circling horizon in gentle folds of verdure. 
The rough-walled river over which the voyager has 
found his way hither is left behind, and around 
Clough's Point is a parallel stream flowing to the sea 
down the west side of old Squam (Westport) by way 
of Montsweag Bay to the savage Sasanoa and the 
Arrowsic, farther down, and which mark the way 
of its first European explorer, for it was in July of 
1605 that Champlain, under the pilotage of Panounais, 
followed the windings and twistings of these bewilder- 
ing waters, that limn the skies and the shadows of 
their shores as tenderly as they did three hundred 
years ago. 

Another twist of the helm, and one has left charm- 
ing Wiscasset behind to make Flying Point to star- 



340 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

board. Here, the stream, narrowing into the shape 
of a bent bow, flows with a swift strong current the 
soundings of which are of great depth. On the west, 
is Kane's Point where the river crags rise sheer to the 
height of almost a hundred feet where it is said was 
the home of an ancient settler by the name of Kane, 
whose cobble walls about his garden-patch are still 
to be discerned. And here, again, crops out the 
English liking for the beautiful in Nature, for tradition 
accords to his wife the planting here in the once 
wilderness, the narcissus, old England's Daffadown- 
dilly, and which to this day hugs the grassy sward 
with English sturdiness, — the solitary, nodding, 
primrose-yellow, — 

"Daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty; " 

to mutely challenge with their matchless hue, the 

wildling 

"violets dim 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
Or Cytherea's breath." 

It is a beautiful tradition, this lingering touch of a 
woman's hand above these sparkling waters, 

"Beautiful as sweet! 
And young as beautiful! and soft as young! 
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!" 

to leave her prophecy of other springs to come, writ 
with a dainty flower. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD** PEMAQUID 341 

A little beyond Kane's Point, the river opens into a 
broad sheet of water. On the west is Jackson's 
Landing where the old-time scout-path from Che- 
wonki and the Hammond Garrison below, made the 
river. And just here is the inland bay of the ancient 
Sheepscot Farms. Passing the lower end of "Great 




AMONG THE BURNT ISLANDS 



Necke" the stream crooks and twists its way along 
the shore for a mile and a half to the tide falls, and 
which is a beautiful plateau elevated perhaps some 
twenty to thirty feet above the river, — an ideal spot, 
and rightly named, "The Garden of the East." 

If one heads due east from the end of the old scout 
road, and across the bay, following the line of the 
ancient ferry that ended at what in its time was Stone 



342 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Wharf, now disintegrate and past locating by the 
present generation, the Burnt Islands are dead 
ahead. They are three in number, and were deeded 
to John Mason at whose house the Government of 
the County of Cornwall was set in motion when Duke 
James of York set up his little state at Pemaquid. 
The sagamores, Robinhood, Dick Swash and Jack 
Pudding were the grantors named in the deed which 
bore the date of "January 20th, 1652, and which 
was acknowledged before Walter Phillips, Recorder, 
and Nicholas Reynolds, Justice of the Peace. These 
islands are known as Wier's, Leeman's and Cunning- 
ham's, the last comprising a large farm. Leaving 
these islands behind, one enters the east branch 
known to the savages as the Chevacobet. It is now 
the Nichols River, across the outlet of which lie the 
burnt islands to make a delta of three mouths. 
Here is Crumbie's Reach, and between which and 
the main river of the Sheepscot, lie the "Farms," 
an extended and beautifully disposed peninsula. 
Whether one stops at "Puddle Dock" village on the 
west, or at the head of the long cove on the east 
where are the remains of the old saw-pit where it is 
asserted Sir William Phipps built a vessel in which 
"he brought off the people," when the Second 
Indian war broke over the heads of these isolated 
settlers, there is enough to interest and to occupy 
the attention, if one is no more than a mere lover of 
Nature, let alone the traditions that linger even in 
the woods where the corn-hills may be traced in mute 
yet rude hieroglyphics, and where the ungathered 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 343 

harvest fell to the ground after the homes of the 
planters had blown away in clouds of heavy smoke, 
and the whoops of the savages had died away in the 
silence of the falling dusk of that fateful day. 

In those days it was called New Dartmouth, but 
its popular appellation has been, Sheepscot Farms, 




CRUMBIES REACH 



which is preferable, with all its bucolic charm and 
suggestion which even now linger in the shapely 
domes of the elms that throw their gray shadows 
athwart the quiet acres, or cool the dust of the 
Sheepscot roads with empurpled outline, tempered 
with the moist breathings of the river winds that 
smell of the savory marshes on either hand, i As for 
the Sheepscot, one may follow it as far as the north- 



344 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

east corner of Whitefield, where it takes the out-flow 
of Patrickstown Pond. It is a beautiful stream, and 
the strange thing about it all is, that, with olden 
Pemaquid on the coast east of John's Bay, this 
settlement should have gone so far inland, as far 
away as the head of the tide. The disposition of its 




PINES GROWING IN AN ANCIENT CELLAR 



sister settlements was to keep to the sea, but here, in 
the depths of the wilderness, was a compact planta- 
tion, where to this day the hollows of thirty or more 
goodly-sized cellars may be counted, cellars that 
were well-stoned, and upon which it may be rightly 
assumed were placed substantial dwellings. Instead 
of the catted chimney of the original settler, the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 345 

chimneys of these houses were built of brick, the 
remains of which are abundant. The stones from 
these old cellars have been utilized in the building of 
more modern houses. At the north end of this old 
settlement is what appears to have been the founda- 
tion of a large structure, but under which were ap- 
parently no signs of a cellar. This, by some anna- 
lists has been supposed to have been the site of the 
church. If it was such, the community was cer- 
tainly more religiously inclined than the average 
Province settlement of the time hereabout. The 
number of dwelling-sites proves the place to have 
occupied some time in its building, unless the first 
comers by a happy chance found the Neck cleared 
for them, which might have been the fact, as such 
openings were not uncommon, though of much 
inferior area. The Indians were planters, and this 
was Samoset's domain. Here may have been one 
of his planting-lands. 

Old houses, the most ancient sort, are intensely 
interesting. They are suggestive greatly of the life 
that was once theirs, and with a clue in hand as to 
their original dwellers, whatever of the mystery of 
the lives they once knew, is not to be unraveled or 
rehabilitated, is to be imagined. They are good com- 
pany, and one forgets the musty and dank odors that 
come with disuse and lack of occupancy, and con- 
jures up their peoples, and one sits and dreams, 
and dreaming, listens, and listening is edified. 
Strange acquaintances one makes especially if there 
be a bit of the old-time furnishings about, if it be 



346 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

nothing more than an old settle by the long un- 
lighted hearth. Kindle a fire, and set the smoke to 
swirling up the black throat of the chimney, and the 
old wainscoated room is thronged with ghosts and 
they move about at their customed labors and one 
hears the pat of their leathern soles on the floors. 
The ancient spinning-wheel is a-whir and life goes like 
the flow of the river. The old clock that once stood 
on the landing at the turn of the wide stair has come 
out of the blank wall and ticks the minutes as it 
used to do, 

"And points and beckons with its hands 
From its case of massive oak, 
Like a monk, who, under his cloak, 
Crosses himself, and sighs," 

for the days when the master of the old rookery, — 
it was not an old rookery then, — kept its weights 
pulling, before it knew the touch of alien hands, 
when 

"His great fires up the chimney roared; 
The stranger feasted at his board, — " 

and there were sounds of childish voices and of light- 
some feet on the threshold. 

These old way-marks on the road of life are fraught 
with pregnant message to the living, and wise is he 
who can wait a moment for the silence to weave its 
spell; for, 

"All houses where men have lived and died 

Are haunted houses. Through the open doors 
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, 
With feet that make no sound upon the floors. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 347 

"We meet them at the doorway, on the stair, 
Along the passages they come and go, 
Impalpable impressions on the air, 
A sense of something moving to and fro." 

There is a strain of the superstitious following at 
the heels of every man, and he oftentimes looks 
behind to see who is following, but he sees nothing; 
and then again he hears a voice, low and almost 
inaudible at his ear, and he stops to listen, but the 
spirit has gone on, and it is his loss that he has not 
caught the subtle message of the air. If one thinks 
of these strange subtleties of 

" The spirit-world around this world of sense, " 

and that 

"Floats like an atmosphere," 

of constant companionship, one gets to be a mystic 
and a dreamer; but to the crude intelligence comes 
the dread of seeing things in the uncanny hours of 
the night, to shrink at the sense of chill that oozes 
out the roots of the hair like the currents from so 
many Leyden jars. Most people don't really like 
old houses, and it has ever seemed to me that it is 
because of this sensing of the intangible. As for 
myself, I never cross the threshold of one of these 
relics of a former activity, but I think of the Witch 
of Endor and wonder not at the strange doings 
charged to the unfortunates who made the little hill 
in old Salem infamous. 

If by chance the old iron crane spans the fireplace, 



348 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the mental picture is complete, and one says with 
the poet, 

" The lights are out, and gone are all the guests 
That thronging came with merriment and jests 

To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane 
In the new house, — into the night are gone, 
But still the fire upon the hearth burns on," 




JOSEPH GLIDDEN MANSE 



but fed by stranger hands, and yet the fire burns. 
But here, about these ancient dwelling-places of a 
by-gone people whose coverings of wood have dis- 
sembled into a like dust with themselves, the task is 
more difficult. If one sees these houses at all, it is to 
see through and beyond them the tangible things of 
to-day, the fields and the woods, the reaches of tide- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 349 

waters, the dank flats, and above the horizon of the 
tree-tops the marge of the low-dropping skies. 

Huge trees grow in these old cellars, years old, and it 
is remembered that in the early part of the 19th Cen- 
tury, 1817, a huge pine was felled that grew in one 
of the ancient cellars, the rings upon whose immense 
trunk indicated an age of a hundred years and more: 
and by which is wrought a record written by Nature 
more emphatic and more reliable than much that 
men write of such long-gone doings. The supposi- 
tion is legitimate and logical that this stalwart of the 
Sheepscot woods was germinated in the ashes of the 
Indian raids of the latter part of the seventeenth 
century, and that the cellar through which its pronged 
roots ramified, were contemporary with those on 
either side of it. Here in this shaft was the memorial 
which had escaped the torch of the savage, and which 
was to become to future generations a calendar of 
ancient date, and on whose broad base the cycles of 
the years were kept in veritable circles. It is from 
this old pine one reckons backward, and if one could 
only read between the lines to discover how long that 
pine seed had lain dormant in the ground before 
the pindling germ broke into the sunlight, another 
link might be added to the chain. 

At the foot of the long cove the river makes an 
abrupt turn and one steers for Woodbridge's Point. 
This is on the left, and the entrance of the Cavesisix 
is a mile farther away to the north. This is one of 
the three branches thrown off by the Nichols which 
has its rise in Cook's Pond in Jefferson. In upper 



350 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

M ew Castle this stream is known as the Great Meadow 
Brook, which is suggestive of strings of speckled 
trout, wet feet, and a hungry stomach. One can see 
from even this far perspective its sienna-dyed shal- 
lows, and catch the ripple of its endless song, and one 
sighs for a rod and a well-wound reel, a leader of 
good stout gut, and a dozen of ganged Kirbys, rather 
than the smooth nib of a romancer's quill. 




BRICKYARD COVE 



A short bit up the Cavesisix is the site of the old 
mill where was ground the corn for the planters of 
the Sheepscot farms, perhaps. It was frequented 
by the settlers of a later time, and its stout dam pro- 
trudes from either bank of the stream in its original 
solidity. Through the middle pours the water with 
a laugh and a chuckle and a sunny glint that is refresh- 
ing. The drowsy quiet of the mill-pond is choked 
with the brush and the reeds that have found a rich 
repast in its sediment, and where once the bittern 
boomed and the heron screamed, the song-birds 
twitter and gossip. Nothing of the mill is left unless 
there may be a bit of a broken burr-stone half buried 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 351 

in the jungle of blackberry vines that climbs the 
steep bank in riant profusion. The miller has gone 
the way of the old-fashioned leather bags which he 
once filled with the wooden scoop, the threshold by 
which he sat in patient waiting for his customer 
who found his bag heavy to his shoulder, and the 
trail to the mill longer than he thought; but those 
were rugged days, and there was no faltering or look- 
ing backward. The star of Hope was before, else 
they had not been here opening up this wild country. 
Back again to Phipps' Cove one is in an atmosphere 
of ancient things, for here is the ship yard where 
many vessels have been built and launched; but if 
one wishes to get a bird's-eye view of the place so 
impregnated with romance and tradition, he must 
needs take the highway to Sheepscot Bridge and 
cross over to the highlands on Dyer's Neck, and 
with a look down from this eyre of rocky steeps in 
the direction of Edgecomb, he will note the basin 
of the olden Sheepscott Farms almost at his feet. 
Here, is a mingling of land and water-scape that 
is akin to the Land of Enchantments. The old 
highway lays along the length of the lofty ridge 
of Dyer's Neck and from this magnificent outlook, 
as one who 

"Stood up in his stirrups, 

Looking up and looking down 

On the hills of Gold and Silver 
Rimming round the little town, — 

"On the river, full of sunshine, 

To the lap of greenest vales 
Winding down from wooded headlands, 

Willow-skirted, white with sails. 



352 F* ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

"And he said, the landscape sweeping 

Slowly with his ungloved hand, 
'I have seen no prospect fairer 

In this goodly Eastern land/ " 

so say I, with the grit of this old highway under my 
feet. But how much different from that day one is 
ever trying to recall, with so many traditions knock- 
ing at his ear, when there was 

" Only here and there a clearing, 
With its farmhouse rude and new, 

And the tree-stumps, swart as Indians, 
Where the scanty harvest grew!" 

The only touches of Nature hereabout that have 
ever remained the same are the " great solt marshe," 
the waters that ebb and flow in and out their reecly 
beds, the gray piles of granite that tower above the 
west shore of the Sheepscot two hundred feet in air, 
and the huge spine of rock beyond Woodbriclge 
Point. 

So exhilarating is the profusion of Nature's 
beauteous riches that like the boy on the great 
beams of the barn about to take a long leap into the 
haymow that seemed so far below, one swings his 
arms as if to span the space between his foothold 
and the verdurous sward across the Sheepscot where 
once the olden houses stood, and where now may 
beacounted many of their foot-prints. Here in the 
aboriginal days were the great hunting-grounds, for 
along the marshes are abundant signs of beaver; 
there are remains of ponds, huts and dams in all the 
streams adjacent, and the sites of their houses are 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 353 

as plainly to be discerned as are those of the old 
Dutch farmer who watched them at their work, 
perhaps. These were famous salmon streams, and 
here were beds of oysters and clams. Herring came 
up to the Falls in great shoals, and, occasionally, a 
huge whale came chasing after. Myriads of seals 
sunned themselves on the ledges left bare by the 
tide, as they do to this day, and bark through the 







JOB'S HILL, SITE OF BLOCK HOUSE 

silences of the summer nights. Over the marshes 
trooped the ducks in solid platoons, to be harrowed 
up by the wild geese that sought the succulent 
grasses and the wild solitudes of those early days. It 
was a land of plenty, and all that was needed by the 
settler was bread, the fruit of the soil. Otherwise 
Nature supplied his larder with duck, teal, brant; 
the wildwood was thronged with the red deer and 



354 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the more unwieldly bear, and a steak from either 
was no rarity. Oysters were served as best pleased 
the palate in those Epicurean days, and one did not 
wait for a holiday dinner to grace his table with a 
luscious salmon, a gamesome wildfowl; nor was he 
observant of the close-time on deer, but all these 
delicacies were almost at his door. It was a land 
of fatness, a garden-spot, inland from the sea less 
than twenty miles, this land of the great Samoset. 

One, in his nosing about these old places, is ever 
desirous of getting at that which is of the greatest 
interest at once, and perhaps one's jaunt about or 
over the "Necke " is best begun at its lower extrem- 
ity in the vicinity of the site of the Old Stone Wharf. 
It takes an old resident to locate the wharf, but it 
was there once on a time and was probably built after 
the fashion of the ancient quays, — of cobbled timbers, 
and which were ballasted with stone of all sizes. 
There are such to be seen at old Kittery that were 
built by the first Pepperrell and that date back to 
around 1630. On the river bank close by the site of 
the wharf, one is on the edge of a gently-sloping field. 
There is a small cellar close by, and one can look up 
the expanse of verdure that is hemmed in by the 
broidery of trees that hug the shelving scarp of the 
river. This circling rim of tree-tops makes an excel- 
lent wind-break for the house that stands to the 
northeast, this side of which, tradition says there 
was an old orchard, and whose ancient Black Heart 
cherry-trees through their seedlings, bear a lucious 
fruit with each coming June. Beyond this, a gunshot, 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 355 

is a nearly-filled cellar of considerable size, perhaps 
thirty-five feet square on its foundation line; south 




SPRING-WELL, SPRING-WELL COVE 



of this another depression of equal extent shows where 
stood another house. To the right-hand is a spring. 
A shallow well was dug here when these houses were 



356 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

erected whose only remains are the hollows in the 
green sward, and from it flows a living stream of 
sweet water that bubbles and boils, and purls over 
its rim of stone, and which was never known to fail 
in the severest drouth. The adjacent dent in the 
shore is known as Spring Well Cove, and here came 
the sailors for their water. Less than fifty feet east 
of this spring is a cellar perhaps fifteen feet square, 
wherein, several years ago was found a silver ladle, 
which is in the possession of the Sewall family of 
Wiscasset. 

According to Cushman, the main street extended 
from the southern extremity of the Neck to its north- 
ern bound, and he says that " two hundred and thirty- 
three rods from the Southern point was a street- that 
crossed the long street at right angles, and ran from 
the Eastern to the Western branch of the Sheepscot." 
That there was another street that ran parallel with 
this main street between it and the Sheepscot shore. 
There was another road led off from the upper part 
of the Neck toward the old grist-mill on the Cavesisix. 

Getting back to the neighborhood of the perenni- 
ally flowing fountain, a little way to the small level 
place northeast, was what has been supposed to have 
been the trading-post. Here, was a stone floor of 
considerable area. Before it was laid bare, some 
ten or twelve inches of soil concealed it, but upon 
removing the soil a stone was found upon which 
were graved figures and hieroglyphics. One can see 
it in the cellar-wall of a more modern house in the 
vicinity. It was used in the construction of the 



Y^ ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 357 



foundation. It would have made a much better 
curio for a historic museum. Many quaint things in 
metal, things which passed through the fire, have 
been picked up: coins of copper; antique Dutch 




A VILLAGE STREET 



pipes; and many of them, as if they were kept as a 
stock in trade; broken crockery in quantities; glass 
slag; masses of rusty iron and collections of oxydi- 
zation, and all in such considerable quantities as to 
suggest the trading-house rather than the limited 



358 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

supply needed for domestic and culinary use. There 
was no excavation, only the floor which was once 
apparently on a level with the threshold, and which 
was laid with much art, with even joints, so it 
"required a heavy team and much labor to break 
it out." 

It seems something akin to vandalism to make so 
ordinary a disposition of those mural relics. But it 
would have done no harm to have left those stone 
floors intact, except that those few square feet would 
have added no increment of grass for the cattle, and 
yet as a show-place, it would have been worth some- 
thing if a man were disposed to be mercenary. Such 
things are of historic value, and the scholar of antiqui- 
ties has some right of research. But these later 
days might well be called the Mercenary Age, such is 
the frenzy for accumulation, — and one way well ask, 
to what end? 

The dimensions of the ploughed-up stone floor 
were unnoted at the time. To the man who ploughed 
it from its long resting-place, it was nothing but 
stones, just cumberers of the ground, ground made 
sacred by associations which only the mystic might 
value and interpret. It was a sordid act, to remind 
one of that impoverished soul to whom 

"A primrose by the river's brim 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more. 

"The soft blue sky did never melt 
Into his heart; he never felt 
The witchery of the soft blue sky." 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 359 



At least, one memorial of those far days, one per- 
fect memento, might have been cherished, and it is 
unfortunate that it was not. 

South of the old supposed trading-house, is a 
wharf of solid stone, of the sort made by Nature, 
with plenty of water at ebb of tide. This was used 
as an ancient landing, undoubtedly, as it might 
be to-day. It is a natural curiosity and reminds 
one of the natural wharf of stone at New Harbor. 
Nature is a master-builder, for the ice has swept 
away the old Stone Wharf of the ancients long 




^ttot/a DAVIS POINT, DECKER NARROWS, CLOUGH'S 

years ago, but here is a massive buttress swedged 
into the shore which makes no note of elemental forces. 
But one keeps on up the gentle slope to find one's 
self on the King's Highway of old, which is said to 
be the most ancient road in Maine over which the 
present travelling public may go and come. Where 
this old highway now comes to an end is plainly to be 
seen the traces of a cross-road or street, of ample 
width, and which runs nearly east and west. Here 
one is met by the slender barrier of a fence like what 
two generations ago people were wont to set up 
about their domiciles, and right here is the hollow 
where was once the cellar of old "Kit" Woodbridge, 



360 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

and which was covered by a stout log-cabin, and 
who had for a help-meet the daughter of old settler 
Tappan, who was once the proprietor of the sur- 
rounding acres. Through the gate in the fence, a 
wide vista of past events is opened to one; for here is 
the old way over which these old dwellers came and 
went in the hey-day of their safe and prosperous 
times. The grass grows in the old street, and the 
foot-prints of its once familiars are obliterated, so 
far as one may see them with the mortal eye, but 
they are still here, and one likes to think of the once 
dwellers along its length, as even now going up and 
down from sunrise to sundown. One would like to 
see them as they used to frequent it, and to stop 
them, for a cordial hand-shake, and a gentle word 
of greeting. 

Turn your back to the down-flowing waters of the 
Sheepscot, that hurry to the sea with the out-going 
tide, and let your vision stretch out slightly east of 
north by the compass, and above the rounded tops 
of the trees over a mile away, the pallid spire of the 
church points straight into the sky. It is a beauti- 
fully idyllic picture and is quite English in its aspect, 
and suggestive of the "quiet life." 

There is much to interest and much to think of 
when one recalls the earliest period of the history of 
this environment, for all along this tree-embowered 
road are the signs of an occupancy, so far off and so 
strange, that one seems in the land of dreams. All 
along this King's Highway were the homes of an 
unknown, unrecorded people. On either side were 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 361 

dwellings and garden-plots wherein grew the old- 
fashioned blooms that one sees even now in the gar- 
dens of some of the remnants of elder times, and 
from their red chimneys curled away the contented 
smokes to blend with the invisible airs heavy with 
the scents of the wildwood. 

A bit away from the house by this gate is a knoll, 
and on its slender peak is an ample hollow where once 




A BIT OF WISCASSET 



was stored the garner of the fields, but which is now 
a dump for stones and farm debris, which has been 
located as the once dwelling-place of Thomas Gent. 
This is a conjecture, but he is supposed to have had 
his home somewhere near the end of the King's High- 
way. From it one has a singularly picturesque out- 
look. It is said that this cellar has never been 
excavated, and no one knows what treasures of 



362 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

ancient relics may here be concealed. Looking out 
toward the sunrise was once a gateway of the style 
affected by the aristocracy of the earlier colonists. 
Johnston says it is "broken down now and filled up 
level," writing of it twenty years ago; and he makes 
the query, "What was it for?" He concludes it must 
have been a "timber fortress, or a block-house, with 
a stockade around below its own level." From the 
location of this old cellar, its site was a commanding 
one, covering even the river-channel. From this to 
old Fort Anne, or Garrison Hill, it is a mile and over, 
and apparently the most available spot for a strenuous 
defence, — but Johnston concludes that, after all, it 
may have been the dwelling-place of settler Gent. 
Those were days when every man's house was his 
castle, in truth and in necessity, though it is apparent 
at that time, very little clanger was to be apprehended 
from the aborigine. The savage came and went at 
will, going in and out these dwellings at his pleasure, 
and from a sense of good policy, this familiarity was 
acquiesced in by the settlers. They were times of 
peace when the skies were clear, and the winds were 
not befouled by the smokes of burning roofs, and 
their monodies unshattered by the discordant yells 
and wild tumult of Castine's savage hordes mingled 
with the cries of their helpless victims. 

Adjacent, but a bit further on, is another depression. 
Here is the site of another old dwelling. In size it 
compares with that accorded to Thomas Gent. Still 
further and somewhat to the left, is a wet place, the 
outlet to which flows westward to the river, and 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 363 

locally known as High Bog, and was doubtless a 
watering-place for the herds of the settlers. It is 
now a muddy place, despite its being a spring, and 
more resembles a stagnant water-pool than anything 
else. To the eastward of this are five to six acres of 
ripe soil, of rich color and suggestive of great fertility. 
There are no hollows here, but a young growth of 
deciduous woods that run to the bank of the stream. 
It is said that the corn-rows could be distinguished 
here as late as 1820, and so it was called the "Garden." 
The settlers maintained in those days some semblance 
of solidarity in the assembling of their homes, and 
had their planting-lands at some distance, or wherever 
it was most convenient in matter of ownership and 
improvement. Doubtless the same condition pre- 
vailed at this ancient settlement, as it seems to have 
been compact and orderly in its arrangement. 

On the river-front is a landing which lays at about 
the middle of this wood-lot, and here is water of 
good depth and a gentle current. Twenty rods 
away from this, the outer line of the woodland is 
passed and here is a well-defined cellar, and over 
the edge of which the trees lean, hiding it in their 
cooling shadows. There is a strong probability 
that the road ran much nearer this once settler's 
home, keeping its way straight down to the trading- 
house. Close by is a mud-hole of somewhat higher 
elevation than High Bog, and which is distinguished 
as Spring Pond Bog. It is of no particular impor- 
tance, only that it is a landmark, and has some likeli- 
hood of having been a watering place as there stones 






364 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

about its rim that were placed there by men for some 
purpose, as their quantity and disposition would 
indicate. It is now a waste place in Nature, a 
nursery for brambles and low bushes. It has ever 
been the same since the memory of men, and is 
like to so remain. 

Holding one's post of observation at the corner 
of the wood-lot, and drawing the line of the vision 
straight across this old spring-hole, a little way be- 
yond, is a goodly-sized hollow where was once another 
old cellar, and which is being slowly obliterated, 
though readily discernible, while, close by and still to 
the north, were several other sites of former cellars 
almost obliterated a generation ago, but well remem- 
bered by the habitues of the vicinity. It is evident 
that here was a street passing between these remains 
of a former civilization which extended west to 
the Sheepscot where the remains of numerous other 
foundations may be seen by a search among the 
jungle of bush and briar that have usurped their 
once fair domain. Keeping on twenty rods further 
one stumbles upon the remains of an old well, 
now rilled to the brim with stone, probably to keep 
the unwary, or the straying cattle from falling into 
its unexplored depths. A wise precaution, surely; 
but one would like to see the red-cheeked lass who 
once pulled its bended sweep over its deeps wherein 
the glory of the sky was painted, or that mirrored 
the gentle face of childhood as it peered with curi- 
ous and awesome glance into its moss-broidered 
lips. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 365 

Still further on, almost as far again, is a cellar 
with a tradition to remind one of the days of Captain 
Kidd, for here is where many moons ago the treas- 
ure-seekers came with their shovels to dig for its 
supposed hidden treasure. Who lived in this house? 
Was he the money-lender, the Shylock of the olden 
community, or was here the Treasury-house, the 
domicile of the tax-collector? It was evidently 
the Treasure Island of the place, for there seem to 
be no other traces of the money-diggers. Whether 
anything ever came of this divining-rod enterprise, 
is not recorded. There seems to be a serious hiatus 
in the tradition, for there are no hints of untoward 
disturbances by uneasy spirits, no spells of witches, 
if ever there were such. 

"No more the unquiet churchyard dead 
Glimpse upward from their turfy bed, 
Startling the traveller late and lone ; 
As on some night of starless weather, 
They silently commune together, 
Each sitting on his own head-stone! 
The roofless house decayed, deserted, 
Its living tenants all departed, 
No longer rings with midnight revel 
Of witch, or ghost, — " 

and if ever there were stories of such, they are gone 
the way of the money-diggers and their eagerly- 
sought, or mis-begotten gains. It may be that the 
witch's ring is the circle of six pits about a central 
one, that are apparent in the ground near by. Here 
is the mysterious and charmed number of seven, a 
figure to conjure by, but conjure as one may, the 



366 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

void of circumstances is unfilled, and one can only 
wonder, and wondering, subdue his sharp regret. 

A little way from this fairy circle, these seven 
holes in the ground, and where the river makes an 
inward curve, is another of these ghosts of old houses, 
for as one stands by its rim of cellar gaping upward 
to the sun, the kills are laid, the frame goes up, and 
the roof is on, and under the dropping eaves trails a 
hop-vine with Bacchanalian wantonness. Tall holly- 
hocks touch the window-caps and the door is wide 
open to the sun, and looks out upon the rushing tide. 
There is a whir of a spinning wheel, and the master 
of the house sits by the threshold smoking one of 
those queer Dutch pipes like what were picked up 
when the floor of the old trading-post was unearthed, 
long-stemmed and as ruddy as a sunset. There are 
children playing by the door and their gay laughter or 
childish prattle keeps accompaniment to the whistle 
of the robins in the towering elm that stands by one 
gable, and throws over the thatch a hatching soft of 
shadows that dance with the wind. I am about to 
ask the old man something of the story of the old 
place but hardly are the words framed upon my lips 
than the picture has vanished, and I am gazing across 
a sightless, eyeless, voiceless indent in the green 
grasses that grow lush and riant, as if underneath all 
was the secret mystery of an unseen life. 

Going down the slope toward the gate through 
which we came, and here Nature again assumes her 
sway, for the wheel-track is hedged with the odorous 
spills of the pine, right here within a half stone's 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 367 

throw, is another hollow choked with bushes. West- 
ward from the highway is a stretch of meadow-lands, 
and near its lower end is an ample cellar, and in the 
near vicinity many others which seem to follow a 
line as if set upon a street, the trend of which is toward 
the Sheepscot, and which, evidently, held its old- 
time way from stream to stream. Close by, is a 
cellar that is something like. It is large, and shows 
an L with stone cellar-walls and fairly well-pre- 
served underpinning of good stone. It has been 
excavated, and was found to contain some excellent 
specimens of the bricks of which the chimneys 
were constructed; and here was a mass of fused 
bricks indicating a different material possibly from 
those manufactured in these days, or even a century 
ago. Perfect specimens were taken out of the de- 
bris, and suggest Dutch origin, as if they were shipped 
here from some foreign port. A well-laid stone 
floor was uncovered, and Johnston says they were 
good flag, "nicely jointed, laid solid and water- 
tight in blue clay," of which there is none in the 
roundabout country. "The underpinning was faced 
up with great bricks, nicely laid." "Fragments of 
fused glass, plain, and finely irridescent; bits of 
porcelain, crockery, potter's ware, a house-key, 
spoons, fragments of charred oak, nicely preserved; 
all sorts of iron tool remains," were found here. If 
one had the art of an Agrippa, one could restore 
these to their pristine perfection and dispose of them 
as they were wont to be, and what a home-like tale 
would be theirs ! 



368 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

It was close by, near Brick-yard Cove, where was 
an ancient place for the burning of bricks. Even the 
kilns are to be located in the bush, and Johnston 
says: "No bricks have been made here within the 
memory of man, and tradition is silent." Close by 
are the remains of an old reservoir from which the 
water was taken for the mixing of the clay and sand. 
This is overgrown with bushes, and is a suggestive 






k 



3S±J. 







BRICKYARD COVE 



relic of a former industry, as old as the bondage of 
the Israelites in Egypt and the elder Assyrians. 
Here was found one perfect specimen of dark "cherry 
red." Could one hold it as one would 
"the stone of Doctor Dee," 
weird pictures would appear within its angles; but 

it is as 

" Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch, 
As Eygpt's statues cold," 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 369 

and marvel as one may, it is, after all, nothing but an 
old brick, but wherein are limned the streets of the 
olden village, and as 

"through the veil of a closed lid 
The ancient worthies I see again: 
I hear the tap of the elder's cane, 
And his awful periwig I see 
And the silver buckles of shoe and knee," 

and as the vision strays beyond, out of the green 
domes that mark the village green, 

" springs the village spire 
With the crest of its cock in the sun afire; 
Beyond are orchards and planting-lands, 
The great salt marshes and glimmering sands, 
And where, north and south," 

the Sheepscot runs, blinking and shrinking as the 
tide goes out, like a twisted shred stripped from the 
blue of the sky. 

Keeping to the skeleton of the old street, one comes 
to the twin cellars, that tell the story of the cherished 
daughter of the household, whose wedding gift was 
a new house adjoining the old, and where the old 
and the new life mingled and fused, to flow on like 
the Nichols and the Sheepscot, a strong, steady 
current, while the little ones came like so many 
brooks down the hillside to bound into the greater 
stream, swelling the sun of life; but these hollows 
are studded with trees, Nature's kindly touch, to 
screen these old places from the rough winds that 
sometimes blow off the river, and as well lend their 



370 Y* ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

welcome shade to these twin graves of olden tra- 
ditions. These slopes are dotted with these graves 
of olden lives; for a score or more are to be counted 
in the immediate vicinity, and the further up the 
Neck one makes his way, the more of these ghosts 
of other days he is able to enumerate, until the wall- 
space of his mental picture-gallery is fully occupied. 
Perhaps a quarter of a mile from the twin cellars 
is the site of the old smithy, and perhaps this worker 
in iron lived across the way, for opposite the place 
where the anvil sang its song and the good-natured 
smith whistled some old Dutch croon, while the birds 
in the near-by foliage kept him cheerful company, 
was another ghost of a cellar. Here was likewise, of 
a peradventure, the gossip-shop of the community 
where the news of the day was retailed, and it need 
not have been meagre in quantity or importance. 
The site is to be as definitely located as if the old fellow 
were there to this day pounding out his nails for the 
boarding of the houses and the shoeing of the cattle, 
if there were any to be shod, which is doubtful. 
Here is a place pregnant with the romance of the 
day; for here was the work-house of the artisan in 
metals, and who knows but he was a Flemish worker, 
whose cranes and andirons were turned with deft 
skill, and of which one would like a pair for his own 
library fire-place, a pair of daintily-hammered Mer- 
curys to take a message back to those days to John 
Mason, or Kit Woodbridge, by winged post, marked, 
— "Answer." But what stout old cranes to span 
the wide chimneys of the day, and to hold on their 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 371 

pot-hooks the steaming viands for those great 
families who were wont to cluster about the home 
board ! Listen, — one hears the tinkle of the hammer, 
and what a roulade of musical notes comes as the 
hammer falls to the anvil after that good stout blow! 
One picks up a bit of the slag that came from his 










THE MARIE ANTOINETTE HOUSE, EDGECOMB 

forge and puts it to his ear, as if it were a conch- 
shell that held all the sounds of the sea, and sure 
enough, here are the wheeze of the huge leather 
bellows and the lively crackle of the sea-coal that 
smacks of the Cornish mines. 

Crossing the foot of the meadow at the head of 
Sheepscot Cove and following what was an ancient 



372 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

cross-street over the now almost obliterated corduroy, 
one is in the midst of these semi-mortuary relics, 
for here is a dozen of the hollows within a stone's 
throw, and each one has been turned by Nature, and 
the neglect of man, into a great jar, after the fashion 
of the Japanese, in which are growing trees and 
dwarf verdure. The stumps of what were once great 
pines moulder in some of them, and all indicate 
room and substantial dwellings. Their timbers 
were of oak, held together with mortice, tennon and 
pin, and they were without a doubt of the same 
style of architecture, two-story, with low gables, as 
the old house Margery Bray romped over, where 
Landlord Bray entertained, and which one may see 
along the Kittery shore, keeping sedate companion- 
ship with the ancient Pepperrell manse. The Bray 
house was built between 1620 and 1630 and is a 
finely preserved specimen of the dwelling affected 
by the prosperous settler of the day. As one looks 
it up and down, and about, one may easily rebuild 
this ancient Sheepscot Farms, for houses in those 
days were patterned very much alike. There were 
no Richardsons who used up days and months, 
incubating the plans for Libraries and Memorial 
Halls, whose beautiful lines and massive effects were 
wrougfrt from the intangible and elusive stuffs from 
which dreams are made; but carpenters were numer- 
ous, and if one could plan a hen-coop, expanding the 
idea proportionately, one could build a house; nor 
was it built in a day, with its carved wainscotings ; 
low, broad fire-mantels; stair-cases whose fluted hand- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 373 

rails were upheld by pilasters of fairy-like delicacy, 
and whose spirals were the grace-lines of a perfect 
circle; and over the outer entrance to which was the 
graceful ellipse wrought into the semblance of an 
out-spread fan, or other quaint and intricate device, 
and all with the rude tools of the time, when endur- 
ance as well as a modicum of artistic skill, with a 
factor. Perhaps the best specimen extant in Maine 
is the Sparhawk Manse in Kittery, which was built 




DECKER'S NARROWS, SQUAM ISLAND 

by Sir William Pepperrell as a wedding-gift to his 
daughter who married Colonel Sparhawk in the days 
when the royal prestige was at its apex in the Maine 
Province, and when Sir William was a Baronet, 
indeed, and when Sir William Phips was the Royal 
Governor of Massachusetts. 

And, this allusion to Sir William Phips reminds 
one that close by the ancient brick-yard is an old 
saw-pit, where Cargill found the plank of oak and 



374 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

the fresh saw-dust, which is known as Phipps' saw- 
pit, and where it is supposed that the plank were 
whipped out for the first ship built here. These 
plank were about two feet below the surface of the 
ground, and it is supposed that they formed the 
bottom of the pit. The tradition anent the place 
is, that, when the settlers realized the danger of 
further delaying their departure from a locality so 
exposed to savage attack, they dug a pit which they 
made the repository of their dishes of pewter, along 
with other treasures and valuables which made up 
the sum of their portable possessions, and then went 
away in the ship which young Phipps had just com- 
pleted as the first Indian war broke. 

Andros wrote of the fort at New Castle, "Most of 
the men drawn off and others debarked, they saved 
their officer and carried him to Boston and there- 
upon the fort was deserted." This, however, was 
in reference to the onslaught of 1689-90. Sheepscot 
was first burned in September of 1676, but with the 
ratification of the peace of 1678, the settlers returned, 
and for the following decade were left to pursue 
their customed and peaceful avocations. 

There were the fields and the old cellars, a stark 
picture,' — two years before, a fine prospect of cosy 
roofs, tree-sheltered along a highway where they 
found the grass growing rank in the ruts, and of 
those who went away, many never returned. The 
cache, where were hidden the household treasures 
two years before, could not be located, and it is sup- 
posed they are hidden away somewhere under the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 375 

sward of old Sheepscot even yet. Disputes arose 
over boundary lines, and titles were in doubt. 
Some sold, and others abandoned their rights, and 
the Government was asked to confirm the titles. 
In April 1682, our old friend, Henry Jocelyn who 
had located at Pemaquid as one of the agents of 
the Duke of York, granted the Sheepscot settlers a 
tract of land which he named New Dartmouth, 
and which was of greater extent than the original 
settlement, and which on the west was bounded 
by the Sheepscot, but which included the present 
town of Alna to the eastward, or a part of it. The 
verbatim description of this grant is unique, and is 
valuable as giving the old-time nomenclature of 
the boundary land-marks. It reads: 

"On y e South to y e Sea; On y e North to y e Coun- 
try; On y e East with y e River known by y e name of 
Damaras Cotte, as also with y e fresh Pond, at y e 
head of Said River, and so into y e Country; and on 
y e West bounding upon y e Great Island of Sacca- 
dahoc, and so through Batesman's Gutt into y e 
Sea South and by West; and also Upward from 
Batesman's Gutt Into y e Country to y e Great falles, 
and from thence to Great Monsicoage fales; and 
from thence a north and by West lyne into y e Coun- 
try as per Piatt will appear." 

It was here, at the old Neck, Henry Jocelyn laid 
out the new town upon the ruins of the old, and 
undoubtedly along the olden King's Highway upon 
which one finds one's self amid these musings upon 
the subsequent happenings hereabout. This old 



376 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

road declines gently northward where was old Fort 
Anne. In Cargill's barn-yard the first stone-floor 
was laid bare, from which westward, across the high- 
way are other ghosts of the past, hollow upon hollow, 
in the velvety sward of the fields. A gun-shot up 
the road is the site of Fort Anne where the old 
Phillips' Cart-path started in to trail away toward 
the Damariscotta River beside which Phillips lived. 
This ancient trail is travelled to-day, and runs past 
the place where the old mill-wheel on the Cavesisix, 
invisible, turns upon its ponderous axle, 

As out the meadows winding down 

With lazy loiter the waters come, 
Cleaving the Autumn woodlands brown, 

Waking their echoes, while blithely hum 
The bees amid the gentian bloom, 

And the yellow sunlight, soft and still, 
Shoots from the mill-pond's bended bow 

An arrow into the eaves of the mill, — 

A silver shaft, — to light the way 

To the swallow's house of straw and clay, 
Shaped like the leathern bottles, old, 

That in Ali Baba's court-yard lay. 
While splashing, dashing, turns the wheel 

Over and over, and round and round 
Whirl the stones to the golden rune 

Writ by the sun on the planting-ground. 

Walter Phillips, Recorder of the Cornwall Court, 
says, — "Mason lived a few rods south of the fort." 
The cellar at the northeast corner where Phillips' 
Cart-path comes into the King's Highway, is sup- 
posed to be the location of the famous house where 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 377 



John Mason lived, and where the machinery of the 
administration of Duke James was set in motion, 
and whose agents are credited with the introduction 
of the Dutch element into the settlement. They 
may have come here before, but it is doubtful. 

Here upon the site of Fort Anne one is overlooking 
the prospect. If one swings upon his heel, making 




GARRISON HILL 



the circle of the horizon the perspective of his vision, 
he finds himself at the apex of the locality. From his 
feet the lands slope easily. Here are the lintels 
through which are borne the frail shades of those 
who have passed on into the land which Moses saw 
from Pisgah's lofty heights, for this slope westward 
is God's Acre. This Sheepscot cemetery is, despite 



378 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQU1D 

its cold staring stones, an inviting place, and fraught 
with historic memories. Here were the earthworks 
and trenches of the fort practically at this day 
obliterated. It is recalled by some that years ago 
an arch of masonry, brick, was to be seen here, but 
it is now buried in the grading, which was an unfor- 
tunate oversight on the part of the towns-people. 
It should have been preserved and properly protected 
as a part of the public property. It would have 
brought its own reward in the increased interest 
in historic matters peculiarly pertinent to the 
local pride. It is only another glaring instance 
of "primrose" culture. 

This site of Fort Anne was a commanding one. 
It swept the scene and all the approaches to the 
Neck looking down the King's Highway, but a little 
less than an eighth of a mile to the north is Garrison 
Hill. Here are the church and the public school, 
but long before their foundations were laid, it was 
occupied by a considerable fortification, much more 
extensive than Fort Anne, but only the tracings of 
its stockade outlines are left to wind along the 
grassy slopes; as to its story, they are silent. Like 
the stones in the burying-ground on the hill-slopes 
of Fort Anne, these shades of old houses thicken 
about one's feet as one strolls down the west side 
of the peninsula. According to Johnston, within 
a space of two hundred and fifty-four acres, there 
are between eighty and ninety cellars to be counted as 
indicating the number of substantial domiciles once 
known as the Sheepscot Farms. It was an ideal 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 379 

situation with easy access to the sea, in the midst of 
rich arable lands, and equipped with mills and the 
tools to carry- on their virgin husbandries. 

It was a fertile field for the rapacities of Palmer 
and West under the like rapacious administration of 
Andros, and whose ancient titles derived from Samoset 
to John Brown, and that from Robin Hood, Dick 




OLD CEMETERY, SITE OF FORT ANNE 

Swash and Jack Pudding to John Mason were sum- 
marily abrogated to institute a system of robbery. 
Indian deeds were "the scratch of a bear's paw," 
and to procure a new title involved perchance a charge 
of thirty pounds. These titles, however, were but 
leases, one hundred and forty-six of which were made 
for New Dartmouth lands alone in the sixteen months 
of the Andros regime. 



380 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

New Dartmouth enjoyed a peace of ten years. 
New lands had been cleared. The Dutch were soon 
acclimated, and new houses were constantly being 
built. The herds increased; ships hugged the land- 
ing, or lay out in the stream waiting for their cargoes. 
In the midst of all this prosperity, the pedant James 
was a fugitive from his throne. France was his asy- 
lum, while William of Orange had landed at Torbay, 
1688, and the Catholic tyranny in England and in 
the colonies was at an end. France espoused the 
cause of James II., and then came the battle of the 
Boyne, 1690. The French to the eastward and about 
the Penobscot began to stir themselves, and the 
savages with their encouragement were again upon 
the war-path, and the atrocities of 1676-8 were 
renewed upon the English settlers. 

This second installation of French and Indian 
savagery began at North Yarmouth in the mid- 
summer of 1688. Following this, the cabins of the 
settlers about Merry meeting Bay were burned, and 
their occupants driven off or killed. The fifth of 
September following, the savages appeared at Sheeps- 
cot, where they made captives of the Smith family, 
after which, for some reason, they drew off into the 
woods, but the warning was sufficient. Before night, 
the settlement, with the exception of the family of 
Edward Taylor, was safely housed within the garrison- 
house which has been described as Fort Anne. When 
the savages returned for more captives, they found 
the settlers had sought the safety of the fort, and a 
little later clouds of smoke from the abandoned 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 381 

dwellings swept across the Neck, and their herds 
were driven into the wilderness or slaughtered in the 
pastures. 

Then came a spell of siege, and if only the provisions 
would suffice their needs, they might escape the axe 
of the savage. As a last resort, they began the build- 
ing of a small vessel. Using every precaution for 
personal safety, working by stealth as they could, 
the timber was cut and conveyed to the shore, where 
they wrought busily as the days went, while the 
spinners spun, and the weavers at the old hand-loom 
threw their wooden shuttles, meanwhile the webs 
grew, out of which were to be made the sails for the 
little craft. At last, from keel to monkey-rail the 
pinnace was complete. Only the masts were to be 
stepped and the main-boom rigged, and that was the 
work of the next day. Hardly had the dusk fallen, 
than the ruddy flames broke through her deck. An 
Indian torch had done its devilish errand, and the 
labors of the settler were again in ashes. But the 
settler is not yet at the end of his wits, for a forlorn 
hope of one has started for Boston through the path- 
less wilderness, beset with danger and foreboding of 
lurking evil, compass in pocket, a pouch of corn at 
his belt, his trusty musket on his arm, and the silence 
of the fort goes on and the savages watch from their 
leafy coverts for the prey about which their web is 
well-woven. The days go slowly, but the garrison 
keeps to the inner walls. 

Each morn dawns like the last, — but no! There 
is a shot of a heavy gun down-stream. It booms 



382 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 



over the woodlands to roll away up-river with redoub- 
ling echoes. The stockade is crowded with eager 
faces, not one but is turned to the bend in the stream 
below the Burnt Islands. Boom, — as if a bolt had 
split the sky, and away fly the echoes up-river. 
Above the tops of the trees where the river turns 

ri.1% 




OLD BLOCK HOUSE, EDGECOM6 



away, is a pillar of smoke, — a prophecy that the 
days of their bondage are counted. Then the small 
arms of the fort are made ready for a salute, and the 
muskets crack, and their smokes roll away. An 
English cheer comes down the wind, and a glistening 
white sail, as beautiful as the first Ma}^flower of the 
springtide, bursts the thrall of the wooded stream. 
It was the return of the forlorn hope with ample 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 383 

succor of troops, and an abundance of supplies; and 
but for a cruel trick practiced upon the savages, the 
bursting of a cannon which wrought a swift havoc 
among their dusky forms, the settlers might have 
remained, to have been cut off later by savage 
treachery. As it was, they hastened into the ship 
that had sailed down from Boston, to up anchor, 
and with the out-flowing tide drift down beyond the 
bend in the river, their last look backward over 
Sheepscot Neck blurred by the smokes of the burning 
garrison left behind. 

Who the man was who went to Boston overland 
through the woods with his compass in his pocket, 
his musket upon his arm, threading his way with 
the foot-fall of the lynx, is unknown, but the deed 
and the occasion 

"make the hero and the man complete." 

For the span of a life time the history of New 
Dartmouth was a tale of the barren and unkempt 
wilderness; but the romance and the tragedy of the 
Sheepscot Farms were rounded out in 1676, when 
the old fort that stood at the entrance of New 
Castle's Land of Shades was obliterated. 







THE PRIEST OF NANRANTSOUAK 



^* 




THE PRIEST OF NANRANTSOUAK 



HE story of Sebastian 
Rale, the last Priest of 
Nanrantsouak, is colored 
by a life of zealous labor 
and aceticism, withal a 
great tragedy. He was 
a member of an order 
once powerful and 
feared, and in its earliest 
days known as The Com- 
pany of Jesus, to whom Calvin gave the sobri- 
quet of "Jesuits," a name by which they were after- 
ward generally recognized. They were expelled from 
France in 1594 only to be reinstated later; and from 

387 




388 Y E ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

1603 to 1764 they exercised a powerful influence in 
matters of state policy in France, and were active in 
more than one conspiracy, to be suppressed in 1773 
by Pope Clement XIV., to be again recognized in 
1814, and to be finally driven from France in 1880. 
Their founder was Ignatius Loyola. 

Of the times contemporary with the subject of 
this sketch, the Jesuits were recognized as the mis- 
sionaries of the true faith in their activity in spread- 
ing the propaganda of the Church among the North 
American Savages, especially in that part known as 
Acadia, and as well extending the French influence 
in the early days of exploration, colonization, and 
trade coveted by the French Regency, and which, 
under the succeeding Kings of France, was main- 
tained only by an almost constant aggression upon 
the English settler of actual warfare of the most 
atrocious character, or by the employment of the 
most invidious influences among the savages, and 
over whom they early acquired almost absolute 
control. 

Rale came to Nanrantsouak in the latter part of 
the 17th century, but was not the first of the Jesuits 
to come among these savages, better known as the 
Cannibas, or the Norridgewacks. The way had been 
bushed out by Father Biart, who made the Cannibas 
a brief visit in 1613; but the story of the Jesuit 
influence in Acadia begins with the Poutrincourt 
colony at Port Royal, and dates from about 1611. 
It is well-known that Poutrincourt was preceded by 
DuMonts in 1604, who began his occupation at St. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 389 







but^ 

ARNOLD'S WAY TO QUEBEC 



390 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

Croix Island, but who shifted his base of operations 
to Port Royal the following spring. He was greatly 
ambitious, and returned to France in 1605, leaving 
Champlain and Sieur du Pont-Grave to complete 
their explorations. It was the next year that Pout- 
rincourt came in the Jonas, 1606. He immediately 
assumed command of the colony. The historian to 
be, of New France, Lescarbot, kept Poutrincourt 
company, and it was with Champlain he made his 
first voyage along the coast of Maine and across the 
Bay of Massachusetts. This was Champlain 's third 
voyage down the coast, going only as far as Mon- 
hegan on his first. 

Four years after Poutrincourt 's advent into the 
colony founded by Du Monts, his affairs were in so 
slender a condition that he was under the necessity 
of sending his son, Biencourt, to the home country 
for assistance. About Port Royal was a fertile 
country where the maize flourished, but there was 
need of other things. There was need of men, of 
artisans and farmers, and of tools to till the rich soil 
about the Bay of Minas, that the colonial larder 
might not fail. There was much work to be clone, 
and Poutrincourt, unlike Du Monts, found these 
Fundy shores, beautiful in summer, and comfortable 
and well-sheltered in winter, and it was to him a 
land of exceeding promise. 

Louis XIII was a minor, whose mother, acting as 
Queen Regent, was more solicitous for the spiritual 
than the material affairs of Poutrincourt's colony, 
and along with the Crown's contributions to his 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 391 

immediate needs were imposed the conditions that 
two of the Jesuit Fathers, Peter Biart, or Biard, and 
Enemond Masse should go along with Biencourt, 
and that the Propaganda of the Church should be 
expounded to the savages, as well as that a church 
should be founded in the new colony. This was the 
extent of the interest of Marie de Medicis, whose 
fate it was to be exiled by Richelieu in 1631. 

This sailing of the Jesuits to America took place 
in the year 1610, and in which j^ear Louis XIII 
assumed the Crown of France. Louis was King, 
and it was under the direction of his ministers that 
the policy of the colonies of New France were to be 
shaped. Those concerned in the Poutrincourt en- 
terprise would not consent to the condition of the 
Queen Regent unless a sufficient sum was advanced 
to cover the cost of maintaining the Jesuits in the 
colony. A charitable donation of two thousand 
dollars was raised by the Church, by which the two 
priests were enabled to take a share in the adven- 
ture, which, despite the somewhat hypercritical 
comments of some writers, was legitimate, alike 
praise-worthy, notwithstanding their vows which 
bound them to lives of denial and poverty. Then, 
as now, all charitable works were dependent for their 
efficacy upon the amount of funds at disposal. 

There was one thing, however, to be discovered by 
these holy men upon their arrival at Port Royal, 
June 12, 1611; Sieur de Poutrincourt would brook 
no interference with the general purse or the direc- 
tion of his administration. He was not particularly 



392 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

interested in their work, and he wanted none of their 
advice. They not only found him obstinate, but 
unmanageable. Having no control of the funds, 
they did as best they could, going among the savages, 
many of whose customs they preached against, so 
that their welcome by the aboriginees was a not over- 
generous one. It was not long after their coming 




ON THE DEAD RIVER 



that these two sons of the Church undertook, like 
John of old, to carry the Word into the wilderness. 
Masse went away with the son of Membertou, while 
Biart set out upon his long journey to the land of 
the Cannibas which was watered by the Kennebec. 
Here he wrought, for he was well received. As the 
first instance on this soil of a clergyman's stipend, 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 393 

it was with the provisions he had in return for 
his gentle ministrations, that he succored the colo- 
nists at Port Royal. The Cannibas had seen the 
white man before, for here was the home of Nahanada 
and Skidwarroes, and the ruins of Fort Popham at 
the mouth of the river were hardly four years old. 

The Jesuits intended to have founded a Mission at 
Kadesquit on the Panaoumske, now the site of 
beautiful Bangor, for here was the supposed loca- 
tion of the golden Norombegua; but sailing across 
Penobscot Bay, they landed at Pemetiq (Mont 
Desert) close by Soames' Sound. This was in 1613, 
and the Jesuits were Quentin and Gilbert Du Thet, 
under the patronage of Marchioness de Guercheville. 
The latter had acquired Du Monts' title in New 
France, and through her influence with Marie de 
Medicis, Sieur de la Saussaye was fitted out with a 
vessel and sent away to found a new colony. He 
made the voyage, touched at Port Royal where he 
added to his company Biart and Masse, after which 
he headed for Penobscot, making his debarkation 
on the northerly side of Mt. Desert, and which was at 
once given the name of St. Sauveur. It was here 
that Biart greatly impressed the savages with his 
apparent miraculous power. As these voyagers 
reached the sands, Biart obeyed his first instinct to 
seek out the savage dwellers of the island. After a 
little, he came upon a village of Etchemins where 
moans of distress fell upon the otherwise quiet of the 
scene. Following the sound, he saw the savages 
sitting a-row about a little child in the arms of its 



394 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

father, who, swaying to and fro, was giving way to 
loud cries of sorrow. Biart saw the child was ill, 
and at once taking it in his arms, administered to it 
the rite of baptism, afterward supplicating with a 
loud voice that God would show some sign of his 
providential care. After this, Biart gave the child 
to its mother's breast, and it ultimately recovered. 
It was an auspicious occasion, and Biart was invested 
by these woodsy children with the keys of Life and 
Death, theretofore accorded by them only to the great 
Manitou. 

The fate of St. Sauveur is known wherever the 
career of Samuel Argall is cited, — the slayer of the 
Fathers Du Thet. It might not have been his 
willing hand, but it was his piratical expedition, 
and Biart and Masse would have shared a like fate 
had they not been elsewhere. 

The Recollects of Paris at the outset of the French 
scheme for the colonization of Acadia undertook to 
evangelize the savage races of that country. They 
had for sometime been prosecuting their labors along 
the Valley of the Mississippi and its tributary waters, 
but they found a different condition in New France, 
where the mission field called for the priests of an 
order whose vows of poverty were not so rigid as 
their own. As has been noted, Enemond Masse 
and Peter Biart or Biard, came with Biencourt. 
The pettinesses of Poutrincourt discouraged them at 
Port Royal. Masse found his first convert in the 
aged chief, Membertou, of the Acadian savages and 
he at once began the study of the Micmac language. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 395 

His mission among the Micmacs was unfortunate, 
and he found his way back to France, only to return 
with John de Brebeuf in 1625. Richelieu in power, 
liked neither Recollect or Jesuit, and offered the field 
of New France to the Capuchins. It was declined, 
and the Jesuits, homeless and without friends at 
Court, were taken in by the Recollects, and it was 
with their aid that the Jesuits were enabled to go on 
with the work in the new field. In 1615, by the 

virtfuifin4 Qjo^Jj 

influence of Champlain, four of the Gray Friars came 
to Quebec, one of whom was Father John Dolbeau, 
and by these were founded the Catholic Missions 
of the St. Lawrence Valley, which were in a way 
the nurseries of the subsequent Jesuit labors about 
the Kennebec and on the Penobscot. With the 
capture of Quebec by the English in 1629, the work 
of the Recollects and Jesuits in Canada came to a 
close, to be renewed after the Treaty of St. Germain 



396 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

in 1632, and from which date the history of the great 
Jesuit missions is to be reckoned. For many years 
the Jesuits were the only representatives of the 
Church in these colonies. They were an integral 
part of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, and their 
chapels were to be counted in Nova Scotia, New 
Brunswick and Gaspe, as well as on the Penobscot 
and Kennebec. 

Down to the years around 1643, the labors of the 
Jesuits among savages of the Penobscot and Kennebec 
country had been of a desultory character. Biart 
had been here at the Kennebec for a brief stay 
among the Cannibas, and had left a most agreeable 
impression. He found them the chief tribe of the 
Abenake race, and of friendly disposition; and it was 
about 1643 that some Abenakis had found their 
way to Sillery with peltries, and one chief was bap- 
tized. It was after this that Gabriel Dreuilletes 
founded the Mission of Nanrantsouack. After 1657 
this work in Maine, so far as the Jesuits were con- 
cerned, was suspended, for fear of giving offense to the 
Capuchins who had missions on the eastward coast. 
Sillery, the early nucleus of the Jesuistic influence, 
was abandoned in 1683 for St. Francis de Sales 
which had been located near the beautiful falls of the 
romantic Chaudiere, the burial-place of Masse. 

From this new base a new series of missions were 
established in Maine, from which first came the Bigots, 
then Rale, Lauverjait, Loyard, and Sirenne. It may 
be said the Dreuilletes with the founder of the 
Norridgewack Mission which was in later days to 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 397 

become such a desperate menace to the propagation 
of the English settlements. Of all these priests, 
Rale was a marked man among his contemporaries. 
He was a man of thorough cultivation, — a man of 
learning and schooled to industry as his Abenake 
Dictionary confirms, a quarto in his own handwriting, 
of priceless value, now in the Harvard Library. 
It is his greatest monument. He begins his work 




°^^r/L 



A BIT OF OLD NORRIDGEWACK 



with this inscription: "1691. It is now a year that 
I have been among the savages; and I begin to set 
down in order, in the form of a dictionary the words 
I learn." This dictionary was one of the prizes 
secured by the West brook Expedition of 1621. 

This preliminary sketch of the beginnings of 
Jesuistic labors among the aborigines has led to the 
threshold of the Norridgewack Mission, direct; for 
it was through Biart that the advent of Gabriel 
Dreuilletes was made possible, and it was through 
Biart's diplomacy, his gentle ways and sympathetic 



398 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

disposition, that this transient visit was so success- 
ful. A few years later the savage Cannibas asked 
for a teacher of the faith of Biart. It was an oppor- 
tunity not to be lost. The establishment of the 
French influence so far south as the Kennebec brought 
the Jesuit one step nearer the goal of his ambition, 
when the settlements of the hated English at Sheeps- 
cot Farms, Merrymeeting and Pemaquid would be 
exterminated by these savage proselytes; when the 
French power should be extended even to the Hudson. 
It was a great dream of power and aggrandizement 
for the Church, but they had forgotten Harfleur, and 
Agincourt. So it came about that the religious su- 
perior of the Canadas sent Dreuilletes to Norridge- 
wack. He was the first settled clergyman, for such 
he may be called, once installed over his savage 
parish, in the territory east of Casco Bay. It was 
a notable event among the Cannibas, and Dreuilletes 
proved a faithful priest, for not then had it become a 
part of the priestly ministration to inculcate the senti- 
ments of hate and revenge into the hearts of his wild 
flock. That was left for his more strenuous suc- 
cessor, for whom he was making a wide and com- 
fortable road among the Abenake, but who was 
not to come until a third of a century had passed. 
Dreuilletes was credited with the power of per- 
forming miracles. An instance is recorded by Charle- 
voix. He was eloquent, and he wrought here and 
there among the remote tribes as at his village chapel 
of Nanrantsouak. He came to be regarded as God's 
vicar among the people who knew him best. The 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 399 

incident of his miraculous power related by Charle- 
voix is connected with the apparent illness of 
Madame de Connoyer to whom the physicians had 
been able to afford no relief. Dreuilletes saw her, 
and making a sign of the cross upon his own forehead, 
the sick woman was immediately healed. Madame 
de Lientot is Charlevoix's authority. To be credited 




FORT WESTERN, AUGUSTA 

with such powers of healing could not but increase 
the fame of the man among his parish, and it said 
the English were not averse to using the gentle arts 
of flattery that his influence might be other than 
adverse to their projects; but either he was too 
sagacious, or too simple to be affected by their 
adulatory policy, for he kept to his labors of advanc- 



400 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

ing the faith of the Church and the influence of his 
government among the Indians of Eastern Maine. 

The years went, until the Indians along the Saco 
began to kill and burn in 1676. The warfare upon 
the English was not of long duration, as a peace was 
made the following year, but it was sufficiently 
disastrous while it lasted; for, the settlements up the 
Kennebec and Sheepscot were destroyed, and the 
settlers were driven from the Monhegan and Pemaquid 
settlements. The causes of this outbreak are not 
directly traceable to the French instigation, though 
no doubt the French were abettors in a degree. It 
remained for the outbreak of ten years later to reveal 
the fine hand of the Jesuit, who had waited long and 
patiently for the opportunity to control the direction 
and manipulation of the savage hordes that roamed 
the woods from the Penobscot to the intervales of 
Pequaket. 

In 1688 the French had news that Andros was 
endeavoring to interest the Indian in the English 
behalf. Vincent Bigot was immediately despatched 
to the Penobscot for the purpose of concentrating 
the savages within the French domain. Jacques 
Bigot, the younger, for these Bigots were Jesuits, 
is credited with some missionary work among the 
Norridgewacks. Father Vincent Bigot is alleged by 
Charlevoix as having on one occasion accompanied 
the Tarratines and Cannibas into New England 
when numerous of the English were slain. 

While the missionary work at Norridgewack had 
been for almost forty years prosecuted with unwaver- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 401 

ing fidelity to the single purpose of winning the 
Indian irrevocably to the French interest, there had 
been since 1667 at the Parish of La Famille on the 
Penobscot, a French nobleman by the name of Jean 
Vincent Baron de St. Castine, who early married a 
daughter of the great Madockawando. St. Castine 
was of a most peaceable and unwarlike disposition 
though bred to the service of arms. Here was an 
important outpost of the French on the southern 
boundary of Acadia, although its limits were sup- 
posed to extend to the Kennebec. And here it 
was that the implacable Father Peter Thury ex- 
pounded the tenets of the Church, and likewise kept 
the red torch of fire, axe and devastation, to be 
ultimately thrown among the English settlements 
to the westward, aflame. On one occasion he made 
his Tarratines an impassioned address which so well 
accorded with their thirst for savagery, that upon 
the sacred altar of the La Famille chapel the savages 
made their vows, and a few days later had made a 
successful assault upon the fort at Pemaquid. 

The blow of 1690 had fallen. York had been 
visited by the disciples of Thury; Casco had been 
devastated; the fort at Pemaquid demolished; the 
settlers at New Dartmouth had been rescued by the 
daring of one man; while the adjoining settlements 
had been utterly destroyed. It was about this time 
that Sebastian Rale made his appearance at the 
village of the Norridgewacks, the ancient Abenake 
Nanrantsouak. Rale is supposed by Lincoln to 
have begun his labors here about 1691. 



402 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

He was a fit coadjutor of Thury, and his teachings 
were colored with the same ruddy hue of carnage as 
the means of the attainment of the French suprem- 
acy of State and Church. For the wily purpose 
none better among the Jesuits could have been 
selected. He was zealous, indefatigable in the carry- 
ing out of his purpose, the which was the avowed 
determination of " converting the heathen." His faith 
knew no bounds. Like Pere Brebeuf and Lallamant, 
of whom the latter was burned at the stake by the 
savages he had undertaken to convert, Daniel, Gar- 
nier, Buteaux, La Riborerde, Goupil, Constantin, and 
Liegeouis, all of whom were killed by the Iroquois, his 
courage was as sublime as his capacity of endurance. 
His abode was a hut covered by the bark of the 
trees; his food was a bit of parched corn, or swollen 
in water; and his mystic ceremonies might well be 
looked upon by the medicine-man of the tribe with 
open jealousy. His coming has been placed as 
early as 1670, and it is probable it would be exact to 
put it anywhere between that time and the date 
first given. He was an open and avowed enemy of 
the heretical English, and his liveliest endeavors 
were given to their extinction. Lincoln gives the 
date of his advent among the Norridgewacks as, 
definitely, 1691, but he may have erred. Others set 
it earlier. He was undoubtedly here when the 
Second Indian War began, two years earlier. 

In one of his letters, he says: "It was among 
these people, who pass for the least rude of all our 
savages, that I went through my apprentice as a 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 403 

missionary. My principal occupation was to study 
their language. It is very difficult to learn, espe- 
cially when we have only savages for our teachers." 
But Rale was a diligent scholar and he relates how 
well he succeeded. "They have several letters 
which are sounded wholly from the throat, without 




A NORRIDGEWACK HIGHWAY 



any motion of the lips; ou for example is one of the 
number. I used to spend a part of the day in their 
huts to hear them talk. At length, after five months 
constant application, I accomplished so much as to 
understand all their terms." 

But where was Nanrantsouak? To the north of 
Waterville, the seat of one of Maine's great Univer- 



404 YE ROMANCE OF OLD*? PEMAQUID 

sities, is Fairfield. The south-eastern corner of old 
Norridgewack laps upon the northern edge of Fair- 
field. Threading the beautiful Kennebec up stream 
north from where it joins the Sagadahoc, past Au- 
gusta and straight on to Waterville, keeping the 
river as did Benedict Arnold in 1775, on his way 
to Quebec, one crosses into Skowhegan, where it 
makes a sharp bend on a southwest course until it 
reaches the center of historic Norridgewack at which 
busy village it makes another sharp turn toward the 
northwest, to still keep on to its headwaters, the 
great Moosehead Lake. At Norridgewack village 
the river makes the angle of a square, and it is, 
perhaps, four to five miles above the village, yet in 
sight of the car-window on the Somerset Branch, at 
Old Point, one may see the site of the Jesuit chapel, 
where, for so many years, this priest officiated among 
his dusky worshippers. It must have been a beauti- 
ful spot in the days of Rale, in its quiet seclusion, as 
it is to-day with the sun lying peacefully across its 
mowing-lands, with only a granite shaft to commem- 
orate the tragic event that has made this particular 
place as notable as any other in Maine. One finds it 
difficult to plant these green levels with the hoary 
hemlock, and within their soft shadows rebuild the 
village church with its circling wigwams, and where 
lived the children of the chase, hunting their game, 
or harvesting through the Indian Summer days 
their yellow maize; but this was the picture that 
was mirrored in the gently-flowing waters of the 
Quinebequi. It was a drowsy place as the mellow 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 405 

summer days sped on softly shod feet, and it was 
well protected from the wintry blasts by its densely 
wooded environment. It was the haunt of the deer 
and the moose, and the waters of the river were 
alive with salmon. 

The locality was easy of access, for here was a 
natural highway from Quebec to the sea. It was but 
a few hours' paddle by canoe to the Sagadahoc, or the 
Sasanoa, and thence out by Squam to the sea. It 
was not far to the Parish of La Famille by the over- 
land trail to the eastward, while to the westward to 
the villages of the Sokoki of which Pigwacket was the 
chiefest, was a trail over which the runner in times of 
emergency could make his way. It may be averred 
safely, that Rale stood at the head of the priesthood 
among the Abenake, and for that reason his settle- 
ment was the most important from a politic point of 
view. St. Castine was upbraided more than once for 
his apathy in the machinations by which the English 
were to be eliminated, but at Norridgewack there 
was no cause for reproach. Rale was the General 
of the Order of which he was the most active exponent. 
Under his domination, outside of the Sokoki, was the 
most powerful tribe of all the Abenake race. They 
had been less in contact with the English than any of 
the other tribes. The Tarratines had known the 
Plymouth traders on the Penobscot under Allerton, 
and the Sokoki had become acquainted with the Saco 
settlements as they had been up and down that 
natural highway from their domain to the sea. Of 
all the Abenake tribes the Norridgewacks had been 



406 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the least imposed upon by the English, and yet they 
were most implacable. 

The chapel of Dreuillettes had been destroyed by 
fire, yet it was renewed as by magic, and it was the 
one found by Rale" when he came among his chosen 
people. He was five days from Quebec; he was 
almost two days from the English settlements; it 
was about the same distance from the lodges of St. 
Castine. He was isolate, except for the associations 
of Nature. A little distance away was the confluence 
of the Sandy River, and there was ever the song of 
the falls in his ears. There was the blue of the sky 
overhead, and the gray trunks of the Druids of the 
woods at his very threshold. Under his feet were 
the tapestries of the tree-tops, the carpetings of the 
fallen leaves, while upon the roof of his church, the 
filtering sunlight wove delicate traceries in fleeting 
designs, the mystic hieroglyphics of which this priest 
in the midst of untrammelled Nature became the rare 
interpreter. 

Here was a lonely parish, indeed, but it was in the 
midst of this virgin environment that this zealous 
priest had determined to consecrate his life to the 
work of the Church. Highly educated, of high 
lineage, accustomed to the softer side of life's aus- 
terities, he had voluntarily buried himself, far away 
from the sunny France, which had been so dear to 
him in his childhood. It was not possible he could 
forget, and it is probable that in his dreams he visited 
the scenes with which he had once been so familiar, 
and that the sweet voices of old filled his ears, as the 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 407 

old flowers wafted him their sweet odors. Strenuous 
as was his life, ascetic as were his practices, and 
laborious as were his tasks and the demands upon 
his sympathies among a stoic people, when sleep 
came he forgot all these, to throw his sails to the 
winds of night, while they carried him over the seas, 
and he was again among the vine-clad hills. How 
empty must have seemed these dreams as on his 




OLD FORT WESTERN 



waking he gazed out the door of his hut with every 
dawn! and how sore his heart! Yet like one walking 
in the furrow behind the plow, he looked not back 
upon the days that had been, unless to see how far 
he was on the journey toward the goal he had set for 
his accomplishment. From his point of view his 
ideal was high, no matter what others may have 



40S YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

thought. It is as evident, misguided though he seems 
to have been in his murderous pursuit of the English 
settler, and cruel as a beast of prey, he was sincere. 
He was a son of the Church, and he knew only what 
to him seemed its high behest. 

Upon his coming to Norridgewack he began imme- 
diately the building of a new church. He had 
brought along its decorations and furnishings. Here 
were all the paraphernalia necessary to a well-con- 
ducted service, according to the ritual of the Catholic 
Church, and which were intended to greatly impress 
the wondering aborigine. Behind the altar was a 
painting of the Virgin Mary, and at one side the golden 
effigy of the Son. Along the walls were highly- 
colored paintings and symbolic effigies, in the midst of 
which adornments were performed what to the savage 
seemed but mystic rites, but which were only the 
usual ceremonies of Rale's office. The Indian women 
emulated the enthusiasm of the priest and brought 
their finest handiwork for the adornment of the altar. 
They went to the far away seashore where they robbed 
the fragrant bayberry bushes of their wax for the 
candles, the brilliant lights of which shed a soft lustre 
over the strange scene. They made cassocks and 
surplices, and forty Indian boys wore them and lent 
their assistance to the solemn functions at the altar. 
All the arts. of mysticism were brought into play to 
attract and hold the attention of these untaught, 
unsophisticated children of the woods. Holy days 
were observed, and processions were made. The 
banners of the church floated in the winds ; and before, 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 409 

went the Host. Censers were carried, the incense of 
which lent a soft illusion to the sweeter air. Mass 
was the first service of the day, and followed the 
breaking of the dawn, and this was in Latin. Vespers 
closed the day, and were conducted in the Abenake 
tongue and the savage was taught to take part in this 
service. He joined in the chant, and as their sonorous, 
untrained voices were lifted in unison, they were like 
a weird incantation, in the midst of all which was the 
Wizard, Rale. What a scene in the midst of the 
Norridgewack woods! Close your eyes and see it for 
yourself, and do you wonder at the mighty hold this 
zealous Jesuit had upon the imaginations and creduli- 
ties of this savage constituency ? It is not for - a 
moment to be thought that they understood the 
meaning of this mystic office, when the intelligence 
of nineteen hundred years has only got to the threshold 
which is marked with the simple mystery out of which 
one spells the word FAITH. As they started on 
their individual journeys to the Happy Hunting- 
grounds, these proselytes of Rale may have seen the 
Light that met Saul of Tarsus as he hastened to 
Damascus on Ms errand of persecution. 

Be that as it may, there were two small chapels 
other than the church. One was at the head of the 
rapids, which was dedicated to the Holy Virgin, 
where her image was raised above its altar, so that 
the sacred effigy of the Mother of Christ should be 
ever in the sight of the dusky throng who were 
taught to pray to her for everything. The other 
chapel, which was below on the river bank where the 



410 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

river waters had resumed their level of a quiet, on- 
flowing current, was dedicated to the guardian spirit 
of the Norridgewacks. 

Rale was constant in his exhortations, nor was 
anything allowed to come in between the priesthood 
and their consciences. He was their conscience, the 
assiduous prober of their hearts. He demanded 
their unreserved belief in what he taught them. His 
methods were perfect, and he obtained what he 
sought, a solidarity of purpose, and that purpose was 
the extermination of the heretic English. 

Rale had become fairly well-settled among his 
people when he was disturbed by vague rumors that a 
warlike tribe of savages with whom he had no ac- 
quaintance were about to settle in close proximity 
to his parish. He was not afraid for himself but for 
his Nanrantsouaks, that they might be drawn away 
from the church and fall into the wiles of the heathen. 
These were the savage Amalingans, a tribe from the 
northern interior to whose ears had never come the 
strange message of eternal damnation. He increased 
his exhortations, coloring them with a renewed 
warmth and fervor, until one day of the year 1697, he 
was visited by a deputation from the dreaded tribe. 
They were greeted with his most impressive exhi- 
bitions of churchly magnificence. He disclosed to 
their surprised visions the extent of his pomp and 
magnificence as he conducted the pious services of 
the Church. They compared him, with his gorgeous 
robes of office and his train of acolytes, his decorated 
altar overlooked by the effigies and paintings along 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 411 

the walls alight with the luminous splendor of the 
fragrant wax candles, the intoning of the chants in 
the pure Abenake, the strange language of the 
Litany, the glittering Host, the gilded banners, — 




NORRIDGEWACK MEETING HOUSE 



all these mystic adjuncts, — with their medicine 
man in his dirt and ugliness, and his strange gibberish. 
They were amazed to see the warlike Nanrantsouaks 
on their knees before the shrine, bowing and crossing 



412 YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 

themselves in utter obedience to the Supreme Master, 
who, to their clouded understandings, was Rale, the 
apparent master of ceremonies. 

They were surprised only to be pleased, and through 
their superstitions they were awed. Then it was that 
Rale, in kindly welcoming, spoke directly to them; 
and it is in this address one gets an insight into the 
character of this priest, to whose lot, whether justly 
or unjustly, it fell to be the most maligned and the 
best-hated Jesuit who ever came to this country. 

Suppose one joins these dusky worshippers for a 
little to catch something of what Rale is saying from 
his decorated pulpit, — they are gentle words: 

"For a long time, my children, I have desired to 
see you ; — now that I have the happiness my heart 
cannot contain its joy. Think of the pleasure that a 
father experiences, who tenderly loves his children, 
when he revisits them after a long absence, during 
which they have incurred the greatest dangers, and 
you will conceive a part of mine; for although you do 
not yet pray, I still' regard you as my children, and 
entertain for you the affection of a father, inasmuch 
as you are children of the Great Spirit, who is the 
author of being as well to you as to those who pray; 
who has created the heaven for you as well as for 
them; and who thinks of you as he thinks of them 
and of me, that they may enjoy an eternal happiness. 
That which pains me and diminishes the joy of this 
meeting is the reflection that one day I shall be 
separated from a part of my children, of whom their 
lot will be eternal misery, because they do not pray; — 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 413 

while the others who pray, will possess the joy which 
endures forever. When I reflect on this fatal separa- 
tion, can I have a heart at ease? The joy I feel for 
the happiness of the one, does not balance the afflic- 
tion I suffer for the misery of the other. If pre- 
vented from prayer by insurmountable obstacles, 
and remaining in the state in which you are, I could 
procure your admission into heaven, I would spare 
nothing to obtain you that blessing. I would aid 
you, I would cause you all to enter there, so much 
do I love you, so much do I desire your happiness; 
but that is impossible. It is necessary to pray, and 
it is necessary to be baptized, to be enabled to enter 
into that abode of pleasure." 

But those are kindly words, and a better greeting 
than a jug of strong-waters which was the English 
contribution to the civilization from the Piscataqua 
eastward. But Rale is expounding the articles of 
the Catholic faith, and then he turns to them con- 
fidently, still talking in the Abenake, — "The words 
which I have spoken are not of men they are the 
words of the Great Spirit; they are not written as 
your messages, figured on a wampum which you make 
to speak whatever you will; but they are written in 
the book of the Great Spirit, which cannot lie." 

It came about afterward that he administered 
to these savage Amalingans the rites of baptism, 
and they were joined to his parish. They became 
his devoted adherents, and entered into his pious 
schemes for the extirpation of the hated English as 
heartily as had the Nanrantsouaks. 



414 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

His life was as simple as their own, and here is a 
note from his earliest experiences at Norridgewack: 
"Here I am, in a cabin in the woods on the borders of 
the sea, where I find both crosses and religious 
observances among the Indians. At the dawn of 
the morning I say mass in the chapel made of the 
branches of the fir tree. The residue of the day I 
spend in visiting and consoling the savages : — a 
severe affliction to see so many famished persons, 
without being able to relieve their hunger." If he 
was the master of this savage tribe, he was likewise 
their servant. Metaphorically, he washed their feet, 
as did that One of old, the feet of his disciples. He 
was the visible exponent of the Great Spirit to them, 
and they loved him with all the affection possible 
with their limited intelligence. 

While the Second Indian War was being prosecuted, 
Rale is to be counted with the Penobscot Priest, 
Thury, as one of its most active and cruel agents. 
They ravaged and slaughtered, through their dusky 
cohorts, throughout the eastern settlements. With 
St. Castine they were the evil spirits. Their mission 
apparently was to imbue the savage with the sole 
thought that once the English exterminated they 
would again be in possession of the birthright of 
their ancient sagamores, and as well be doing God 
the greatest service within their power. This war 
had early destroyed all the English settlements as far 
as Wells, but in 1713 came the Peace of Utrecht, and 
the torch was slowly extinguished; and it was not 
until 1720 that the Indians again became trouble- 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 415 

some. Rale had become apprehensive of the grow- 
ing influence of the English, and had written Vaud- 
reuil of the danger of the savage tribes going over to the 
heretics. A deputation of Abenakis from St. Fran- 
cois and Becanour, accompanied by Father La Chasse, 
the Superior-general of the Canada Missions, was sent 
to the Norridgewacks, to strengthen the French 
influence. Toxus had died, an irreparable loss to 




THE OLD JAIL AT NORRIDGEWACK 



Rale. He had been the great war-chief of the Nor- 
ridgewacks, and he was entirely loyal to the French. 
Living, he had been able to keep the savages true to 
the teachings of the priests, but dead, Rale was not 
long in discovering the wavering among his prose- 
lytes. As has been before remarked, these children 
of the Norridgewack woods had but little acquaint- 
ance with the English, and despised them. It had 
never occurred to them that one day the English 



416 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

would invade the secret recesses of their wilder- 
ness home; so in an evil clay they again joined the 
French. 

It was in August of 1721 that the French with some 
two hundred Abenakis went down to Arrowsic to 
threaten Captain Penhallow and to demand his 
immediate removal from their lands on the penalty 
that their cattle should be killed and their settlement 
burned if they failed to get away at once. The 
Superior-general La Chasse and Rale went along 
to support Anselm St. Castine in his demand. The 
Massachusetts Government regarded it as a hostile 
demonstration, and ordered the arrest of St. Castine, 
which was shortly thereafter accomplished, and the 
Penobscot leader was taken to Boston and there for 
sometime kept in the common jail. 

This was regarded by the Indians, who were ready 
always to kill and burn, as a sufficient provocation; 
but the Colonial Government at Boston were wearied 
with the machinations of Rale, and regarding his 
stronghold at Norriclgewack as the hot bed of these 
savage treacheries, organized a force of three hundred 
men under the command of Col. Thomas Westbrook, 
and w r hich was despatched thither the same year, 
1721-2, with orders to seize Rale. The expedition 
failed, for only the private papers of the priest were 
secured. The Norridgewacks fled, and to whom the 
taking of Rale's papers was an insult to their Great 
Spirit, whereby they were incited to a greater fury 
against the settler. 

Rale had received a warning of the approach 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 417 

of the English under Westbrook, and came very near 
being captured. Sometime before, both legs had 
been broken by a fall, and he was able to get but a 
short distance into the woods. The soldiers were 
close upon his heels and he stepped behind a tree. 
They came so near as almost to touch it, but as Rale 
says, relating the incident, "as if they had been 
repelled by an invisible hand, they turned away and 
retired." Westbrook never knew how near he came 
to his prey. Urged by his loyal savages to take safety 
by going to Quebec, he answered "none of these 
things move me, neither count I my life dear unto 
myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and 
the ministry I have received from the Lord Jesus." 
He was to be a zealot to the end, and which perhaps 
he even then saw with prophetic eye. He was not 
unaware of the estimation in which he was held by 
the English; nor could he fail to see the sun of the 
Indian was lowering to the west. His letter to 
Vaudreuil was the cry of mariner in distress, and 
perhaps he preferred to perish with his people. 

The Indians after this were especially active about 
Black Point and Saco. They showed a boldness in 
their approach against the English that was different 
from their former methods of warfare, which was 
taken by the English to mean that some great project 
was afoot among the French and the savages; and the 
designs against the Rale settlement were again 
renewed. The contents of Rale's little iron trunk 
which may be seen at the rooms of the Maine His- 
torical Society, contained abundant evidence of the 



418 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

diabolical intrigues in which Rale was engaged, and 
the proof of his machinations was established. 

As one recalls the atrocities instigated by Rale, one 
wonders of what stuffs the fabrics of his dreams were 
made when the night had shut down over the forest 
domes of Norridgewack ; whether they were of the 
suns that had risen and gone down day by day, and 
the wild plans for the christianizing of savage America, 
the ruddy glare of Sheepscot, Pemaquid and Arrowsic, 
the crackling of ma^r fires and the crashing of as 
many roofs, the moans and cries of terror as the 
tomahawk flashed in air, the lifeless up-staring eyes 
of his victims, for they were his in very truth, the 
stark fields stripped of their herds, the ravaged homes, 
and the plaints of the captive women and children 
while the air throbbed with the whoopings of his 
emissaries; or, were they of 

"The tranquil skies of sunny France, 
The peasant's harvest song and dance, 
The vines around the hillsides wreathing 
The soft airs midst their clusters breathing, 
The wings which dipped, the stars which shone 
Within thy bosom, blue Garonne?" 

The story of Rale in those last days of his at 
Norridgewack are best pictured by Whittier in his 
romance of Mogg Megone. The limning of the 
tragedy that rounded out the sum of his unholy 
ambitions is brushed in with the hand of a master, 
and one hardly thinks of the weary priest in his 
dim chapel, but the ghost of Ruth Bonython glides 
in to bend at his feet a conscience-stricken woman. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 421 

"Her hands are clasping the Jesuit's knee, 
And her eye looks fearfully into his own ; — 
' Off, woman of sin ! — nay, touch not me 
With those fingers of blood; — begone!' 
With a gesture of horror he spurns the form 
That writhes at his feet like a trodden worm." 



In September of 1723, the Norridgewacks made a 
descent upon Arrowsic. Thirty-seven dwellings were 
burned. Three hundred cattle were killed. One 
child was slain, while the other of the settlers fled to 
the garrison. The Indians returned to the wilds of 
Norridgewack, and from which place other sallies 
continued to he made. The depredations at Arrowsic 
aroused the government, and it was determined to 
strike a deadly blow at the heart of all this mischief. 
Winter came but the preparations for an attack on 
Norridgewack went on. In the summer of the next 
year, 1724, Moulton and Harmon led a body of 
rangers down to the Sagadahoc. There were two 
hundred and eighty of them. They were discovered 
by the savages who retired up the river keeping on 
to the Rale settlement. Moulton and his men kept 
their way to Ticonic. On the twenty-first day of 
August, Moulton left Ticonic. A sufficient guard 
was left behind to care for the boats and the provi- 
sions. Moulton pressed on through the woods 
keeping to its most secret defiles. Moulton and his 
men were out to kill. The sun had dropped slowly 
down, and the lengthening shadows on the woods 
had merged into the gray of twilight; silently they 
crept over the mosses leaving no sound of foot-fall, 



422 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

and across the gloaming sped two dusky figures. 
Muskets shots broke the evening quiet into a shiver 
of sound. There was a cry, a moan, and one form 
dropped to the fallen leaves while the other waited 
beside it. It was the wife of the Sagamore Bomazeen 
and her daughter; and the daughter it was that 
lay among the brush, dead. In her terror the mother 
betrayed her kindred; for from her, Moulton ob- 
tained a detailed account of the Nanrantsouak 
village, its position and most secret ways of ap- 
proach, with the number of savages they were likely 
to meet. This was the knell of the tragedy about to 
be perpetrated. Moulton was no doubt conscience- 
smitten as he gazed upon the work of his muskets, 
but his heart was steeled to his work by the terrible 
atrocities of the Indian girl's race, and the trail 
was taken up as before, the rangers dividing into 
two parties. Captain Moulton was to make his 
attack directly upon the village. Harmon, with 
eighty men, was to make a circuit, to come upon the 
savages from the unexpected quarter, by the way 
of their maize fields which were just upon the outer 
edge of their tillage. The assault was well-planned 
and thoroughly understood. At a whisper, each 
went his appointed direction, and so they wound 
through the deep darkness of the woods, Indian file, 
a sinuous thread of fate being unwound slowly but 
surely from the trail that was left behind, an invis- 
ible thread, 

"Never rustling the boughs or displacing the rocks, 
For the eyes and the ears that are watching for" 



YE ROMANCE OF OLD^ PEMAQUID 423 

the hated Yengees 

"Are keener than those of the wolf or the fox." 

" Steals Harmon down from the sands of York, 
With hand of iron and foot of cork? 
Has Scamman, versed in Indian wile, 
For vengeance left his vine-hung isle?" 

Like so many ghosts hugging the shadows of the 
night, the avengers wind in and out the forest aisles, 
feeling their way by the rough rinds of the trees, 
stopping to listen anon, as some unfamiliar sound 
comes down the wind, or for an upward look at the 
sky, as if to measure the span of the hours. 

As the dawn broke and the spires of the towering 
hemlocks had caught the first glow of the east, the 
unguarded wigwams of the drowsing Nanrantsouaks 
were revealed. Not a Yengee shot was to be fired 
until the savages began their repulse, and the ad- 
vance was like the flight of a bird through the air, 
noiseless and swift. The rangers could touch the 
outer rim of wigwams, so stealthy had been their 
approach, and there they stood, so many statues, 
waiting to see the glint of Harmon's muskets above 
the ruddy tassels of the maize field. 

A single war-whoop, — 

"A yell the dead might wake to hear, 

startles the dewy coolness of the morning air, and 
sixty surprised and terrified savages parted the 
deer-skin doors of their wigwams, hemmed about 
by the fatal circle, and before the answering echoes of 



424 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

their yells had died away, there were thin wreathings 
of pale smoke swirling away from as many savage 
muskets. It was a futile voile)', — their bullets 
went high, as Moulton predicted. Not a ranger 
was struck, and it was then each marked his savage 
prey, and as he glanced along his glittering weapon 
he saw the glare of the flaming roofs of York to light 
the way of his deadly messenger to the heart of the 
murderous Norridgewack, who went down like grass 
before the mower's scythe. The muskets spit 
simultaneously, and under cover of their low-hanging 
smokes the savages, with despairing cries, made a 
dash for the river and their canoes, in a wild effort 
to escape; but Harmon closed in from the depths 
of the waving corn and cut them off, driving them 
out of the woods and back to their village, where 
there is a 

"whistle of shot as it cuts the leaves 

Of the maples around the church's eaves, — 
And the gride of hatchets, fiercely thrown, 
On wigwam-log, and tree and stone, 
Black with grime of paint and dust 

Spotted and streaked with human gore. 
A grim and naked head is thrust 

Without the chapel-door. 
'Ha — Bomazeen! — In God's name say, 
What mean these sounds of bloody fray?' 
Silent, the Indian points his hand 

To where across the echoing glen 
Sweep Harmon's ranger-band, 

And Moulton with his men;" 

and where the righteous vengeance of the English 
is being glutted to its brim. 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 425 

But where was Rale ? 

There was a puff of a musket smoke from a 
wigwam door, and a ranger fell. It was Rale 
avenging the slaughter of his Norridgewacks. He 
had dropped the crucifix and taken the musket. He 
was a warrior as well as a zealot, but that musket- 




^^Cu-e^I^tv** 



THE OLD TAVERN 



shot was his betrayal. A moment Rale stood in the 
door of his wigwam, the opening before which was 
strewn with the dusky children of his parish, men, 
women and their offspring, for the slaughter was 
indiscriminate, erect though a cripple, defiant, his 
visage distorted with his hate for the heretic, now 
colorless with his sorrow for the fate of his Nor- 



426 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

ridgewacks, and the rude shattering of his life-long 
ambition, now aghast at the sacrilige of alien hands. 

"With his pallid hands up-raised in air, 
The gray priest murmured a silent prayer; 
And then, from his thin lips, swift and loud, — 
Swift as a peal from a thunder-cloud, — 
The curse of the Church exultant fell 
On the English, as falls the Wizard's spell. 
The Saint's bell swung in its narrow cote 
To hush the scene with its brazen note, 
As if by ghostly hands set ringing, — 
As o'er its dead a requiem singing, — 
As marking slowly, with solemn toll, 
The masses for Pere Rale's soul," 

for its first silvery peal was garnished with a single 
purl of white smoke, and punctuated by a sharp 
rifle-crack; and the weary priest lay on his face 
athwart the sill of his hut, his crucifix in his hands, 
— the emblem of his faith to which he turned in the 
moment of his supremest danger. 

But for Rale's shooting the ranger, he would have 
been taken prisoner, unless young Larrabee had 
found him unprotected a second time. It is a 
family tradition of the Scarborough Larrabees, that 
Benjamin Larrabee, a son of Thomas, and a brother 
of Anthony Larrabee, who were killed the preceding 
April by the savages, though but seventeen, joined 
Harmon's company and kept the trail with his fel- 
lows. He was in the midst of the fight, and near 
its end he went from wigwam to wigwam until he 
came to that one where Pere Rale sat with his long 
pipe at his lips, smoking indifferently. One would 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 427 

like to know what vision filled his gaze as the battle 
went on that he should maintain so perfect a com- 
posure. But Larrabee, thirsting for vengeance upon 
the savage, left him, to return a little later. He 
found Rale where the bullet of Lieutenant Jacques 
had left him, still barring the door- way from which 
he sent the only message he had for the heretics. 

Jacques was a son-in-law of Captain Harmon, and 
had disobeyed an explicit order not to kill the priest, 
but Jacques averred that when he shot Rale, the 
priest was reloading his musket and refused all 
concession. It was a fitting end, for he died as he 
wished, among his people. The sagamore Bomazeen 
kept him company with the flower of his race. Four- 
score of the Norridgewacks were killed, and less than 
a half hundred altogether were left of a once most 
numerous tribe of the Abenake famity. The tribe 
was broken, and the remnants of it withdrew to the 
Mission of St. Francis de Sales on the Chaudiere, to 
which were gathered the remnants of the Sokoki and 
the Tarratines, all together making a strong Indian 
settlement, from which, from time to time after- 
ward, sallied out murderous bands to feast their ven- 
geance on the distant English; but it was not until 
1759, in the month of September, that Robert Rogers 
with two hundred men, all veteran rangers, set out 
from Crown Point to penetrate three hundred miles 
of wilderness to the doomed Canadian village of St. 
Francis of Sales. Its fate was that of old Nor- 
ridgewack, and its fifty wigwams went up in smoke; 
its priests were killed, and the torch was thrown into 



428 YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 

the chapel, and hastening away under the curse of 
the Church, tradition says that not one of the ran- 
gers ever returned to his home. Like Norridge- 
wack, St. Francis de Sales was utterly obliterated, 
and the English were in part freed from danger of 
savage attack, but it was not until twenty years 
later the race was subdued. 

Norridgewack destroyed, the victors withdrew 
down the river while the reek from the wigwams 
and the blazing church filtered through the woods, 
and there was the smell of smoke on their garments, 
for the savages were left as they fell, their faces to 
the sun. It was a terrible vengeance to be meted out 
upon the defenseless, as well as the warrior savage, 
but it was deserved, only it was unfortunate that the 
French instigators of their depredations could not 
have been extinguished with them. 

It was not long after, that Castine came with his 
Tarratines to bury the dead, and 

"No wigwam smoke is curling there; 
The very earth is scorched and bare; 
And they pause and listen to catch a sound 

Of breathing life, — but there comes not one, 
Save the fox's bark and the rabbit's bound; 
But here and there, on the blackened ground, 

White bones glistening in the sun, 
And where the house of prayer arose, 
And the holy hymn, at daylight's close, 
And the aged priest stood up to bless 
The children of the wilderness, 
Is naught save ashes sodden and dank; 

And the birchen boats of the Norridgewock, 

Tethered to tree and stump and rock, 
Rotting along the river bank!" 



YE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 429 

There is one more there, other than the dead priest 
and his silent, stark, up-looking company. 

"Blessed Mary! who is she 
Leaning against that maple-tree? 
The sun upon her face burns hot," 

but what could it be other than the ghost of poor 
Ruth Bonython, the restless uneasy spirit, confessedly 
guilty of the slaying of her clandestine lover's mur- 
derer, compelled by the irate priest to walk the fires 
of eternal purgatory? And thus the picture fades, 
while all that remains of Rale is the mute brazen 
bell that was found a century after under the upturned 
roots of a huge hemlock, left there, probably, by one 
of Moulton's men, who had tired of carrying it, or 
had hidden it, that its voice might never again bring 
to the memories of Pere Rale's savage acquaintance, 
the place where it once rang to matins as to vespers, 
and where its seductive voice would be forever 
hushed. Like the spirit of Ruth Bonython, it has 
returned, the ghost of other days, an accusing Voice, 
to dwell among the descendants of its despoilers. 
To me it is an uncanny thing. The mouldy patches 
upon its sun-painted sides are like the gray mosses 
that feed upon the head-stones in the graveyard. 
Its throat is choked with all the sounds that live 
above the earth, and when I pass it by, it lights up 
with the glare of smoking roofs, or it may be the flare 
of the bay berry candles moulded by the lissome 
daughters of the dusky Nanrantsouaks. It is Rale's 
old bell that vibrated with the fatal shot, that saw 



430 YB ROMANCE OF OLD** PEMAQUID 




THE RALE MONUMENT 



the doomed priest fall, and fraught with wizardry. 
'Tis an alien thing, and ever will be. 
But up by the rapids of the Kennebec as the spring- 



FE ROMANCE OF OLDE PEMAQUID 431 

tide flushes the eastern hills, where the Norridgewack 
wigwams stood, 

"Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks 
The blue eye of the violet looks; 

The southwest wind is warmly blowing, 
And odors from the springing grass," 

to scent the Madison fields, an old bronze cross was 
not many years ago unearthed. On this spot hal- 
lowed by Dreuilletes, and by the unmarked grave of 
the ascetic Rale, rises a stone shaft. The cross that 
marked the storied gable of Rale's church surmounts 
this pillar of stone, and, ribbed with granite, catches 
the first pulsing of the dawn and the last glow of the 
setting sun. There is no other hand-writing of the 
days long gone, only the fields and woods, and the 
same sky. There are no pictured stories on the rinds 
of the birches that lean over the historic stream. 
Not even a hoary hemlock is left, and Nature with 
her customed wantonness has swept her ample 
floors of its litter of tragedy, and not a ravelling of the 
gruesome tale is left other than the river that leaves 
its wrinkle across the pathway of the blinking sun. 




'*s .;':#": 



MAR 9 ^ y 



